Artisan by Jessica Natasha

Arti san A COLLECTION OF INTERVIEWS W I T H H O N G KO N G â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S A RT I SA N S

Jessica Natasha

Artisan

Artisan A COLLECTION OF INTERVIEWS W I T H H O N G KO N G â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S A RT I SA N S

Jessica Natasha

Contents

Leather BEIS Leather

Butcher Lab

Paper Bovey Lee

Kade Chan

Pottery FlowPlusLiving

Ray Chan See Kwong

Wood Mr. Lung

The Cave Workshop

LEATHER

BEIS Leather is a leather studio run by Ryan Lau Tsz-hin and his wife, Catherine. Located at the Jockey Club Art Centre (JCCAC), the studio crafts customized leather goods and serves as a shop that sells works of different artists from all over the world. Catherine, who spends most of her time at the studio, shares her story on how their leather business has expanded throughout the years.

B EIS L EATH ER

Can you tell me a bit more about your studio and brand? Why BEIS?

LEATH ER

How long has the workshop been running?

How did you get the idea of opening a leather workshop?

We’ve been running since 2010. It’s been 6 years already! We first started the shop back at our house and moved into a small studio on the 8th floor of the JCCAC. We stayed there for some time before finally moving to our current place 4 years ago. We currently only have 2 full-time helpers and some part-time helpers. Most of them, like my brother and Chen, first started as students of the workshop and then decided to work with us. Roughly we have 10 helpers, but since they travel a lot they’re not always around. Only when we have bigger projects that we call them to come and help out.

Actually it’s because, Ryan, my husband and the founder of our leather workshop, came across a Japanese-translated book called “Hand Sewing Leather Craft.” He read the book, became inspired and decided to quit his job to become a full-time leather crafter! Actually he was working at IBM as a service engineer, so it’s quite different from what he’s doing right now.

So our name is pronounced like “bee-us,” although we used to call ourselves BEIS (pronounced like bees). The name BEIS is actually a combination of the initials of our family’s names. Starting from B for Ryan’s Cantonese name, E and I for our daughter’s name, and S for my Cantonese name. But we don’t want our name to only mean something to us, but also to the customers. That’s how our phrase “Be Elegantly Insane” came about and abbreviated to BEIS. Our current logo is actually a portrait of our daughter. Originally, we use the joker’s crown (hat) as our logo because it fits to our concept of being elegantly insane. However, after our daughter was born, we decided to include her in our logo.

I was wondering how did your husband learn about leather crafts? Actually he didn’t learn from any tutors or teachers, he’s self-taught! He learned them from youtube videos and books. When we first started the business there weren’t a lot of other leather studios or workshops, but now there’s over 50 leather studios in Hong Kong, mostly located around Kwun Tong or Central.

B EIS L EATH ER

We enjoy spending time with our daughter of course! As well as traveling and playing with the kids. We often make baby products for her. I think it’s great because they’re very popular among the customers. A lot of them would praise us for making small bags for the baby; they think if we have the technique and talent to make small backpacks for the babies, then we would do well making the bigger ones. So she actually attracts a lot of customers to browse our fan page. People don’t remember our face but they can recognize hers! Sometimes we would bring her to the workshop and people would come to take pictures with her.

To you, how important is to collaborate with other artists and attend art events or fairs?

What are some of your most favorite creations?

We mostly do tailor-made leather orders and workshops, however, our signature product would porbably be our Doctor’s Bag. Although you can purchase the bag’s frame at any leather shops, our designs are custom-made, so we don’t have size restrictions. They might offer sizes like S, M, L but some customers might want to get specific sizes for their bag. That’s why Ryan decided to tailor-made the frames himself. The customers can choose their colors, whether they want linings inside, inner pockets, or if they want to engrave their names on the bag.

It’s actually very hard to open a shop here in Hong Kong. We met a lot of artists who later become our friends at local art fairs and flea markets. Once we’ve decided to have a bigger shop here, we thought that apart from our own studio we should also have a platform for other artists to share their works too. Most of these artists are our friends, but some are actually strangers to us. There are some foreign artists too, especially from Taiwan. They saw our facebook fanpage and then contacted us through e-mails. Some of them we never even met in person! We were actually surprised that they have trusted us enough to send their products after having e-mail conversations with us. Now we have over 50 artists that the shop collaborates with.

LEATH ER

If you both are not working what do you enjoy doing?

B EIS L EATH ER

We usually communicate with local artists through text messages or whatsapp app, while we communicate with foreign artists with e-mail once a month for a monthly report. But we mainly commucatie with other artists through large-scale art fairs once every 3 months. We invite artists to open their own booth there to share their experience and sell their works. Our relationship with them would usually gets a lot closer after the art fair.

LEATH ER

How do you usually communicate with artists you’re collaborating with?

In general, what do you think of the arts and crafts community in Hong Kong?

I think it’s still developing. We went to different countries like Taiwan, Macau and Japan for our workshop, and we found that the arts and crafts community in those countries are more developed than Hong Kong. People there treat crafts as local brands, unlike here in Hong Kong where a lot of people still treat them as simply hobbies. A lot of our friends were shocked that we’re doing leather crafts as our full-time job. They often ask what we really do as craftsmen and how we can survive from doing them as a full-time job. And we told them that we can! We’ve been doing the leather business for 6 years now! That’s why we think that there could be more development and exposure for the handcrafts community in Hong Kong. Governments in countries such as Macau and Japan are very supportive of their handcraft communities. Like how the government in Macau organize large-scale fairs twice a year and invite artists across the world to the country, providing them with free accommodations, transports and booths in order to promote their artists and build realtionship between them. We think Hong Kong definitely need things like that.

B EIS L EATH ER

LEATH ER

Is there any artist that you and When running the workshop your husband really admire or are there any problems or want to collaborate with? challenges that you faced? Actually Ryan admire a lot of local artists, but we have worked with all of them already. Usually when we like someone, we would contact them immediately to collaborate. One of the artists that we have the pleasure to work with is Eric Kwok. Erik is a singer, actor, artist and owner of a local fashion brand that has been running for 10 years. He requested to make souvenirs for a press release event, and it’s like a dream come true for Ryan because he likes Eric Kwok a lot. His partner came to our shop often and one day invited Eric here. We first started with a causal meeting at first, but the next time we meet it was already a production meeting! Eric is also an organizer for concerts so he has a lot of connections and that’s how we had a chance to make costumes for Mayday, the Taiwanese band that I really like. This time, it was my dreams come true!

I think the challenging thing in Hong Kong is the rental fee. Even the rental fee for commercial art centers like this are not cheap. And for us this is quite challenging. When we still had our workshop at home, we didn’t have to worry about this problem. But once we moved from the small studio to here, the rental fee increases 10 times! And you can’t do your own personalized renovations here. You have to write a proposal and then get them approved by the officers. It’s very hard for us to make the space our own, so we just renovated on our own. We sticked floor mats to our floor, and made our own furniture. We don’t have that much money to make renovation, so apart from making our own furniture, we modified old shelves to create spaces.

B EIS L EATH ER

What do you think about the location of your shop? Honestly it’s so-so. I like the environment and how secure the place is. Since the art center is run by a limited company, they promote our shop, provide us with both security and cleaning services. But the main reason why we like this place is because this is where we have our first public art fair. This was when we were still working from home and sell our products through facebook and online shops. We were surprised how we nearly sold all of our products, around 90% of them, and we received a lot of orders just from the two-day event. Because of this we became quite fond of this place and decided to open our shop here and stay for some time. Since this place is an art center, people who come here look for artists. But truthfully, the area is not a very hot location in Hong Kong. A lot of people come here to see dance performances and the theater down at the basement. Most of them didn’t know that there are art studios and workshops too. Even when you hear the name Jockey Club, you think of the lotteries and horse racing. When we first came here 6 years ago, it was just opened. We took pictures and went sightseeing, but we just forgot about the place for a while before finally moving here.

I think first of all you need to love your projects. When you love what you’re making, you’ll find many ways to enjoy it and some ways to make it different. If not, you would think that it’s boring and you won’t make it work. In Ryan’s case, he likes challenges. Even for the same backpack style, he tries to come up with new ideas each time. Our Doctor’s Bag for example, although we’ve made lots of them, but for each one, Ryan improves his skills and adds a new design elements to it, like adding an inner pocket or even dilate his own leather. This is what keeps him working in the business for 6 years! That’s why you have to love what you do! We get inspirations from our daily lives too. Like when we travel abroad, we look at some of their local leather designs and observe how people would use their bags. Although Ryan’s hobbies become a career now, they’re still his hobbies!

LEATH ER

What are some tips for people who wants to stay focused and committed to their projects?

Actually I feel that Ryan is not a really good role model because when he first opened the workshop, he didn’t think too much about it and just quit his job immediately! To succeed, you need to survive, push yourself to do it, and sacrifice something for it, like how Ryan sacrificed his stable income. When he quit his job we just became engaged and it was a huge shock to me. I was seriously worried! So that’s why I think he’s not a really good role model. But again, stay passionate, stay focus, and really treat it as your full-time job! You need to equip yourself well. Before having your own studio, launch your brand through facebook or online shops. Show people that you have the talent for making good products. If you want to have your own studio, don’t expect to just stay at home. Walk out from your comfort zone! You may think your product is good, but you need feedbacks from other people. So walk out, ask people for their opinions and feedbacks and you’ll find your way!

Lastly, what are some hopes or future plans for the studio? Our future plan actually has stay the same since we first opened the studio: to be known as a Hong Kong leather brand. When you think of leather, you still think of other foreign luxury fashion brands. You can’t think of a brand from Asia. So we want to be known internationally, promote our products overseas and represent Hong Kong!

LEATH ER

What about tips for those who are thinking of opening their own workshops or do crafts as a full-time career?