One look at the wall decorations in Buteo Huang's (
Huang is kite maker for whom artistry and fun are paramount. He takes his creations so seriously that when the makers of the Canadian movie Flying Home asked him to make half a million Canadian goose-shaped kites for promotional purposes Huang refused. He believes that mass production is not an artistic way to make kites.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BUTEO HUANG
Huang is a night owl who does his best work in the middle of the night. His painstaking attention to detail allows him to master virtually any design he sets out to create. His close friend, Andrew Hsu (許曉嵐), describes him as a man of complete devotion.
His three-dimensional kite designs are often inspired by everyday objects, but which nobody has previously made into a kite. Designs such as a flying 2m sailboat, an "air-swimming" sea-shell, or an Aborigine totem pole are just some of his creations. Huang makes some of the most improbable ideas literally fly.
Huang recalled when he was eight years old, his elder brothers bought a diamond-shaped kite with a cartoon figure painted on it and flew it so high that it disappeared into the clouds. They called to their little brother and when Huang saw it, he was completely overwhelmed by the scene, as the kite darted in and out of the clouds. The experience was a defining moment in his life.
"You know, where I lived in the Taiwanese countryside was a great place for kite flying in the 60s. From that day on, I started to make my own kites with materials such as paper and bamboo," said Huang.
Huang also developed a keen interest in birds, visiting the zoo and drawing all the different kinds of birds he found there. He used his drawings as blueprints for his kites, but disastrously, none of the bird-shaped kites could fly.
Prodded by these initial failures, Huang continued to research kite design. A TV program he saw showed a huge centipede-shaped kite flying in the sky, and at this point he became convinced that with enough careful studying and trial and error, he too could make similar kites.
Huang therefore experimented with various shapes -- diamond-shaped, squares and triangles -- but none stayed airborne. Then he came to Taipei for high school, where he had the opportunity to read books about kite-design. Huang then started to study the physics of flight and challenged himself to design three-dimensional kites. Four laid-back college years at Tamkang University
"When you see a hawk-shaped kite flying freely high above the blue sky, you know the kite is actually made from bamboo sticks and cotton paper. And yet, the kite seems to possess a vitality from the moment it leaves the ground," Huang said. " I am enjoying exactly the same great joy as God in creating things."
Each handmade kite, according to Huang, is infused with sentimental value by its creator and contains untold soul-touching stories.
Taking advantage of his college major in interior design, Huang applies his training to his favorite pastime. Instead of the traditional method of composing a kite from memory, he begins by drawing a design sketch so that the idea and technique involved are fully recorded. The sketch then allows him to refer to his designs to work out ideas for improvements.
Using only memory to make Asian-style kites, which use hundreds of bamboo struts in its structure, a kite designer is unlikely to be able to make many different designs. Huang said that after a few years he sometimes can no longer remember how to make a kite of his own design, because he's simply made too many. His sketches allow him to go back through his files and resurrect his older designs and share his knowledge with kite lovers and hopefully with future generations.
Huang's approach to kite making differs from conventional methods by placing more emphasis on the artistic design of a kite's framework, rather than just focusing on the surface design. Precision, artistic beauty and knowledge of aerodynamics all play key roles in this respect. Making use of original drawing, Huang is able to create kites that are both beautiful and structurally elegant.
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