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Myanmar Lacquerware (Video)



 
 
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Old February 29th, 2004, 02:41 AM
utunlin
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Default Myanmar Lacquerware (Video)

Please view the video at
http://www.myanmar-today.info/video/LACQUER-WARE.mpg

Myanmar Lacquerware

Lacquer-ware is perhaps the most distinctive of all Myanmar
handicrafts and the most widely produced and used. Lacquer ware was
long a favorite of royalty for storing documents and precious
jewellery. Common households employed it for everyday use such as
keeping betel nuts and leaves or as soup bowls. Monks use a black
lacquer bowl known as Thabeik collecting alms. Lacquer ware was highly
treasured that Myanmar kings often presented lacquer objects as gifts
to foreign emissaries. Little is known of how the making of lacquer
ware started in Myanmar.

What is certain is that lacquer ware is a traditional Myanmar craft
that dates as far back as the 13th century. Valued for its artistic
beauty and practical qualities, it is light and watertight condition.
One can find lacquer ware ash trays, bowls, water jars, vases, salvers
for temple offerings, cups, jewellery boxes based on an ancient design
that double as pillows, traditional betel boxes, plates, storage
chests, tables and chairs. Considering the time and work involved it
takes five to seven months to make even the smallest item. The center
of lacquer ware manufacture is Bagan.

It is a cottage industry and some 600 households produce lacquer ware
in the village of Myinkaba alone. Visitors are welcome to watch the
process, a skill passed down from generation to generation. The
process begins with the making of bamboo frame for the lacquer ware
item, a bowl for example. For objects of the highest quality, fine
horsehair, taken from the tail, is woven around the frame. Bamboo
wicker or horsehair are traditional materials employed for lacquer
ware products.

After the frame is made and bamboo wicker or horsehair has been woven
around it, the first coating of lacquer is applied. The lacquer paint
used is black and it comes from a resin of a particular tree found
around Inle Lake region. The lacquer paint is applied by hand which
makes an even coating. The object is then left to dry for a week in an
underground cellar; drying in the sun in the early stages causes
pockmarks. The object is then taken out for a second coating of
lacquer. It is left to dry for yet another week in the cellar. The
next stage involves covering the object with a paste made from a
mixture of pulverized buffalo bone, teak sawdust and lacquer to fill
up any nooks or crevices. It is left to dry for a week.

The object is polished with pumice stone to remove rough surfaces.
Lacquer paint is again applied and the object put aside to dry. After
another week, the object is polished again, both on the inside and
outside, using a mixture of clay and stone. The polishing is done
three times before the object is stored underground for one month.
Then a long process of painting and drying begins. First, the inside
of the object is painted with lacquer and left to dry for a week; then
the outside is painted and the object is again put aside for drying.
At that stage the object is polished again with water and stone, dried
in the sun for two hours, another coat of lacquer is applied and the
object is dried underground for a week. For the next seven weeks, a
layer of lacquer is applied at one-week intervals. The result is a
shining lacquer product made even glossier by careful polishing with a
chamois soaked in sesame oil. At this stage, the desired color and
designs are worked onto the object.

Usually traditional designs are etched onto the surface by very fine
instruments. Then one color is applied, the lacquer ware is left to
dry for a week, it is polished with rice husks, washed with water and
painted with acacia glue to fix the color. If another color is
required, more details are etched and coated with the second color,
left to dry for a week, washed and then fixed with acacia glue again.
More etchings are made and a third color is added and this time, the
object is left to dry for a month.

Later, it is polished first with teakwood ash and water and then with
a piece of cotton cloth. It is washed and dried again for ten minutes
in the sun and finally polished with a powder made from pulverized
petrified wood. That's not all. The object is painted once more on the
inside with red lacquer, left to dry for one week and is finally ready
for sale. It takes five months to produce lacquer cups, seven months
to make betel boxes and at least a year to produce tables and chairs.
But the final result is without a doubt, a thing of beauty and a fine
testimony to Myanmar craftsmanship.

Referece - http://www.myanmartourism.com/myanma...tworkshops.htm
 




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