From discarded wooden slats, Le Ngoc Thuan (Hoi An, Quang Nam) has turned it into lively works of art.
Thu Bon river, starting from Ngoc Linh mountain (Kon Tum), flows into the estuary in Cua Dai ward (Hoi An, Da Nang). From July to October each year, clumps of dried bamboo, water hyacinths and rotten firewood drift back in clusters. In the past, for the people of this area, it was all flood waste, at most picked up a few dry branches for firewood.
Pros “firewood flood”
Le Ngoc Thuan lives in An Bang, Hoi An. When he opened the restaurant, he manually set up and decorated his business spaces like no other, drawing Western customers back in droves. Thuan is famous around the area because it often goes to … trash to turn into attractive decorations.
After the historic floods in Hoi An at the end of 2020, a friend from Ghanh village, Cua Dai ward, located close to the river mouth called jokingly: “Thuan, the firewood came back a lot, if you took it or not, bring your car. download download ”.
Any doubt, Thuan is like a gold sock. In the afternoon, he drove a pickup truck to the sand along Cua Dai beach. The rubbish was scattered on the shore mixed in plastic wool and wire. There is a firewood just the size of a bicycle spokes …, carefully brushed the sand and brought it back.
A week later, Thuan called his friend who used to call him to take firewood to his restaurant, leading him to a painting about 80cm high and 1.5m long, saying: The day we picked it up at Cua Dai beach ”. The sticks appear in the picture frame into deep and unique multi-nuanced faces.
The first picture of “firewood” assembled by Thuan was placed in the space of the main entrance of the restaurant. Many Western customers who saw the painting demanded to buy it.
Then Thuan found a business relationship from this. He liked the name Thuan “firewood” that people teasingly gave. “I really like that name, turning things thrown into objects and sold is a way to regenerate another life cycle of trash” – he said.
Turn firewood into … dollars
The tourism business atmosphere in Hoi An for a year is as soft as the 30th New Year’s afternoon market. Several restaurants of Thuan also have to manage enough ways to attract customers, one day holding a sea art festival on the white sand beach in An Bang, another day inviting good chefs throughout Hoi An to hold a culinary festival.
From the end of 2020 until now, Thuan has opened a new restaurant with a natural design style, less use of concrete, turning this place into a “showroom” displaying his works revived from discarded objects. .
From December 2020, the sunset art market will open to welcome guests. In addition to enjoying music, cuisine, oil paintings and handmade products of foreigners living in Hoi An, many visitors enjoy the wooden works.
The paintings of Le Ngoc Thuan assembled maintain the color of the wood and the existing lines of the wood grain. It is very coarse, with almost no paint or chemicals used to polish.
On a wooden board which is a waste wood cover that an art carpenter in Kim Bong (near the ancient town of Hoi An) left, floods swept to the river mouth, Thuan picked up, admired and imagined, thanks to a painter. . Then he diligently chiseled for nearly a week. After cheating, everyone laughed because a strange face appeared on the wooden board.
But when trimmed, paint on the eyes, ears … a beautiful picture appears. In a sunset art market, a Western guest agreed to buy it for 2 million VND, with the instructions that if there were nice things to call, he would continue to buy.
Such wooden paintings are becoming the main product line in the weekend sunset art market. Entering Le Ngoc Thuan’s stall, many people buy pictures of fish swimming in rows, strange flower pots, unique and skinny flowers, not knowing that everyone has had a different life, rolling. in the river, before Thuan makes them soulful.
“Not just an ordinary item”
After initial trial and tinkering, Le Ngoc Thuan now confidently chooses this as a potential business direction for her. At first, he chiseled himself, but when he saw that the goods were made, customers ordered to go there, he decided to buy things to open the factory, go to Kim Bong carpentry village, pick up discarded wood fibers to make materials. The skillful craftsmen that Thuan knew he invited back. The workshop rattled the whole day, the goods came out steadily …
Wall paintings for decoration in villas, restaurants, cafes, wooden cosmetic boxes, tissue boxes, chairs, flower pots … all kinds of dishes were born from this strange carpentry factory, with some dishes. sold for nearly 1,000 USD. Orders from more hotels, more cafes, and restaurants.
“This approach is in line with the emerging trend of civilized, minimalistic, environmentally friendly living and recycling objects. These items are not simply ordinary consumables, they are storytelling works from the past, ”said Thuan.
Mr. Tran Van Khoa – director of Jack Tran Tours Hoi An – said that one of the trends of arranging and decorating new hotels and restaurants is to use friendly materials combining art.
In Hoi An, the thinking of arranging and decorating accommodation facilities is still heavy “aluminum, glass, modern”, expensive, not many people follow the trend of minimalism and friendliness. “So I think what Le Ngoc Thuan is pursuing is in the right direction towards this positive trend”, Mr. Khoa said
| Looking forward to awakening Kim Bong carpentry village located in the old town of Hoi An, the ancient handicraft village named Kim Bong used to flourish, but for about 30 years now, there are not many artisans with enough passion and creativity to pursue the traditional profession of his father. And one of the main reasons is that the main handicraft products serve worship, spirituality, not innovating according to the trend of life. Le Ngoc Thuan said that when he embarked on the project of making art wood products, he returned to Kim Bong carpentry village to order samples, thanks to the craftsmen here to carve them, then sell them for trial and were enthusiastically welcomed by the customers. “I will connect large sources with Kim Bong carpenters to develop more modern wood art products,” Thuan said. |
 Works from wood washed into the sea by artist Lynn Muir.-Photo: Facebook character many international artists also unleash their creativity with “firewood stray branches on a few lines”, drifting into the beach or lake, in the “driftwood sculpture”.Although well-trained in illustration art, British artist Lynn Muir has been involved in blowing dead branches of dead wood for 35 years. At his home workplace, overlooking the North Cornish beach in southwestern England, Muir picks up peanuts, and according to their shape creates colorful decorated doll statues. When Muir has an idea, Muir will actively find a piece of wood with a suitable shape, according to her introduction on the website of the handmade gallery Hawksbys. Once the ingredients are in place, Muir will saw, grind, chisel, and then use brushes and acrylic paint to create the final product – mostly statues of different characters with funny expressions. “The designs can be repeated but each work is unique because of the different wood and drawing” – Muir wrote on his personal page. The artist has had many private exhibitions and is selling products ranging in price from a few tens to several hundred pounds. |
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