Inside the Jewel Vault with with Wallace Chan

INSIDE THE JEWEL VAULT WITH WALLACE CHAN

Welcome to Inside the Jewel Vault hosted by me, jeweller and gemmologist Jessica Cadzow-Collins. In this episode, I had the honour of speaking with Wallace Chan, one of the world’s greatest jewellery artists and master craftspeople. His work is treasured in both East and West by private collectors and museums such as The British Museum, London and Long Museum, Shanghai.  His spellbinding designs express the beauty of life underpinned by his own technical innovations such as a gemstone intaglio cutting technique called the Wallace Cut and The Wallace Chan Porcelain, a new form of porcelain 5 times harder than steel! And all this despite leaving school aged only 13.

While creating this conversation, Wallace’s unique way of viewing jewellery and life was so enjoyable that I think it's impossible not to learn something useful. His insights as a master jewellery technician, creator and innovator are inspiring to say the least. I hope you enjoy walking through the world of Wallace Chan as much as I did!

I want to hear from you!  What special treasures would you put into your fantasy jewel vault, and why?  Every so often I’ll compile your stories into a podcast of their own.  So please email me: jessica@juraster.com

Produced by Lizzie Wingham. Engineered by Gareth Lewis.

Let's start with your childhood. Tell us a bit about your parents and family – was there any interest or skill in jewellery, or art, or crafts in your home life when you grew up? 

I was born in 1956 in Fuzhou, China, and when I was five years old I moved to Hong Kong with my parents, sister and two brothers. One of my uncles was a carver, but no one in my family worked in jewelry. We lived in poverty, 12 people in a small flat, and life was difficult. We struggled so much just to keep warm, have enough food and keep a roof over our heads.

Because I didn’t understand Cantonese, it took a long time to find a school that would accept me, and it wasn’t until I was 11 that I started attending classes at a “rooftop school”. My schooling lasted barely two years and I was 13 when I started working full time to help support the family.

What did you experience as a child that had a lasting impression on you and led to your career in jewellery? 

It is basic human instinct to always want something you cannot have. Because I grew up in poverty and was cold and hungry, I never stopped dreaming. The fact that I had to quit school at 13, made me very curious. I wondered if people became very knowledgeable and intelligent by reading books and going to school. So I developed this incredible thirst for knowledge and it is now a lifelong influence. The first stone I encountered was a piece of malachite. I was enchanted right away by the texture, swirling patterns and colors. 

Later on, I got my hands on coral and jade, which were popular materials for carving. But then I discovered more: cameo, intaglio, light, crystal, Western mythology and Michelangelo. I just kept exploring. It was, and it still is, my curiosity that drives me to dive into the unknown. I have always been eager to learn. 

When I started gemstone carving, I also learnt and practiced Chinese painting, oil painting, and all kinds of carvings like on wood and metal. These were outlets for my creative energies and also, the skills I acquired have helped me perfect my judgement.

Let's take a look inside your Jewel Vault at your first piece. How does this remind you of your childhood?

I have been captivated by porcelain since I was a little boy. Growing up, my siblings and I had to share a plastic spoon to eat with. The adults in the family used porcelain spoons. I yearned just to touch one of those spoons. To me, the porcelain represented all the things that were then out of my reach – comfort, warmth, love, freedom.

One night, my curiosity got the best of me, and I reached for a porcelain spoon. Just as I thought I had it, it slipped from my clumsy fingers and shattered into pieces. 

I never forgot that moment. It was not until several years later, when my cousin brought home a porcelain spoon—which happened to be from the Qianlong period, and he managed to sell it for a price many times higher than what he purchased it for—that I realised porcelain’s cultural and historical value.

I thought to myself that porcelain deserved to be stronger. As strong as the centuries of history surrounding it. So I set out to re-imagine, re-build and re-shape porcelain. And finally, after seven years of research and experimentation, The Wallace Chan Porcelain was born – with rich color, intense lustre, toughness and a contemporary spirit. Five times stronger than steel, it will not break should it slip from your hands.  

My first creation with my super-strength porcelain is a ring. It is titled A New Generation and now in the permanent Collection of the British Museum. Needless to say, it belongs to my imaginary vault.

Here's a link to Mr Chan’s website to learn more.

You left school and started working at a very early age – can you tell us a bit about this time? How did you start out and what were you doing for a living? 

My schooling lasted barely two years and I was 13 when I started working full time to help support the family. 

I worked many jobs – as a delivery boy, in a textile factory and selling on the street. After a few years of odd jobs, my uncle introduced me to work at his friend’s gemstone carving workshop. Working in the gemstone factory was meant to equip myself with a skill — if I can build a skill, then I would be able to survive and secure my own future. 

When I was at the factory, I was not learning what I wanted to learn — I was just learning what other factory workers were doing. So after nine months, I left my master. My parents and uncle, who had introduced me to the workshop, were deeply troubled and thought that I had ruined my future.

I begged my father for 1,000 Hong Kong dollars and used the money to buy a carving machine and a hunk of malachite and started selling small carvings door-to-door. I set up a folding table and two chairs by the fire escape of the building I lived in and called that my workshop. 

At that time I was 17 years old. I knocked on the doors of crafts shops hoping to sell my two carvings and faced many disappointments, but eventually I was able to sell them and buy more gemstones to make more carvings.

After a year in the fire escape, my parents realised I could make money and asked some people to leave the flat and so I could have a little room to work in at home. I worked there a few years and then moved to a building in To Kwa Wan, in Kowloon.

During these early years were there any role models or specific inspirations you came across that have informed your early work?

In the early stage of my carving career, I was very much inspired by Michelangelo. I was young and became fascinated by his sculptures and how he used light in his techniques. Through imitation, I discovered the secret to Michelangelo’s sculpture:

Michelangelo expressed human bodies in an abstract form and distorted the normal muscle structures so that the reflection of light on opaque marble could accentuate the contours of the body to achieve a vivid depiction. 

This realisation prompted me to pay extra attention to how the light moves and reflects and how that affects the colour distribution in gemstones, before innovating gemstone cutting techniques.

What are the milestones in your journey from your early start to becoming a gemstone cutter? Are there any pieces that represent the biggest failures or disasters that you’ve had to overcome?

The Wallace Cut has a special place in my heart. It was the first milestone of my life; it showed me that impossibilities sometimes contain possibilities bigger than those one can imagine. It took me beyond my own capabilities. The idea is to combine precise facetting and internal carving and intaglio to create an illusion. You see five faces on the front but only the face in the center is carved, the other faces are only reflection. I invented this illusionary carving technique in 1987, after 2 and a half years of practice and experiment. So the Wallace Cut must also go into the Vault. 

As for failures, throughout my 45-year journey with gemstones, I have made countless mistakes. To create the Secret Abyss necklace, which took me 10 years, I cracked 30 pieces of crystal before successfully setting over 1,000 emeralds through a 6.5 mm opening on the pendant. It belongs also to the Vault.

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I have spent years creating a piece, only to later take it apart and start all over again. I embrace my failures. Courage comes in when we talk about failure.  If I feared failure, I would have never even attempted my experiments. Once you realise the beauty in failures, and once you see them purely for the teachers they are, they become far less intimidating.

What would you tell anyone who was longing to set up their own studio? 

Keep learning and practicing what you have learned. Don’t be afraid to conduct interdisciplinary experiments, because everything in this world is interconnected.

We’ve got 3 more pieces to look at but first I’d love to ask you what does jewellery mean to you? 

I feel that there are a lot of similarities between architecture and jewellery because architecture houses our body and jewellery houses our spirit. 

When I work with a gemstone, it feels like I live only for it and forget my own existence and the world around me: the only important thing is the material. It is much like falling in love. You just don’t want to let go of the moment. 

And I never want to let go of my creation. Many people ask me where the inspiration or creativity comes from, and the answer is just one word – love. If you experience this beautiful feeling towards people, gemstones, and the universe, then everything tends to inspire you. It’s very crucial to my creations.

I heard that you were a monk for a while – is that true?

Yes. From 1999 to 2001, I worked on the Great Stupa in the Buddhist Mountain, Taiwan. The completion of this process allowed me to experience some changes, mentally and spiritually. Later on, I became a monk for six months. After that, I returned to my jewellery-making and carving. I became much more aware of the world. I believe that all things in the world have their internal spirits. If you give your love to an object or a living thing, you will get love in return. 

The artistic process is like a spiritual practice to me. When you practice spiritually you also try to transcend your physical body, you transcend the material world and you’re trying to get to the spiritual world in order to achieve a high level of wisdom. 

I feel that my artistic practice is quite similar because I need to empty myself and try to communicate with the immaterial, to minimize my own existence and really go into the world of the immaterial to explore the unknown. So, when I create, it’s like I’m on a religious practice. I inject energy into my creation — I inject love into the pieces so that these pieces will make people feel hope, light and joy.

When it comes to religion, I have experienced Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism in different stages of life, and to me, in the end, it is all about love. Love and empathy make us human. 

We’ve talked a lot about your incredible talent for innovation. What pushes you to learn and master new skills?

Ever since my first innovation, the Wallace Cut, in 1987, I have fallen in love with innovative research. I love the trial and error, the experiments and all the mistakes I make on the way to discovery. 

I am most interested in the unknown. I will always want to go where no one has gone before, and do what has not already been done. Perhaps I am biased, but I think one of the most important traits for creators to have is curiosity – it will drive them to explore, to take risks and to make something truly original.

Let's talk about materials and inspiration. Are there any gems or jewels that you long to work with? And when you are designing a new piece, is it your dream or the gem itself that decides what it turns into?

When I see a gemstone and start the process of creation, I close my eyes and meditate. Every stone is different – each has its own unique character and personality. You must approach cutting a gemstone as you do meeting a new person. You listen to the stone, you take the time to understand it, and you stay curious. You try to see it for its true self.

If you look deeply enough into a stone, it will tell you how to cut it. Follow its light, and eventually, you will allow its innermost, optimal beauty to shine forth. 

I created a number of rings inspired simply by the inner world of gemstones, one of which is titled Ruby Castle. I fell in love with the ruby and it revealed to me its destiny. That's another piece for our imaginary Vault. 

Ruby Castle is an extraordinary ring, with the hexagonal shape of the gemstone set on its side, and the echoes of geometry throughout all the other settings. Can you tell us more about it?

Sometimes I think of myself as the translator of the universe’s messages. Sometimes I feel the incredible urge to create a piece; the idea may be something that appears out of thin air. Sometimes it is the stone that intrigues me, inspires me, and motivates me to create for it. There is not one single approach to creation. The only approach is possibly to create no matter what.

What’s next in your Jewel Vault?

Another piece to go into the Vault, is Stilled Life, my signature cicada created with imperial jadeite. It was first just a shoulder brooch in 2012, by 2015, it has a bamboo throne, and by 2022, it has its own showcase in titanium, its home. Sometimes a dream can be endless. The process of creation comes with limitless possibility. 

Every piece of yours expresses a richly beautiful and fantastical world. What’s the main message that you express through your work?

Creating jewelry is an experience and way of understanding of life. I create to share such experience and understanding. My works are the best embodiments of my time on earth, and I hope that, after I am no longer here, my works will continue to embody the spirit of our times – all the good, the true and the beautiful that we have tried to achieve with our time.

Now, of course, The Wheel of Time should go into the Vault, which is a set of 12 necklaces, inspired by the 12 animals in Chinese zodiac. With this piece I challenged myself in the complexity of titanium carving, and also how to create a balanced proportion while keeping each animal and each necklace in its perfect form, although each necklace has a different animal as its center, surrounded by 11 other animals, in traditional order. 

Jessica's Notes: When I saw this set of necklaces at the exhibition at Christies London, also called The Wheel of Time earlier in 2023, I felt so moved by their beauty.  They are complex, and the technical challenges of creating each one is overwhelming to think of but the one thing that struck me most were their vivacity.  They were like living creatures, not pieces of titanium!

Wallace Chan’s journey from a humble stone cutter to a fine artist and jewellery creator is a testament to the power of resilience, innovation, and an unrelenting pursuit of mastery. His work, celebrated as high jewellery for museums and connoisseurs alike, reflects a unique contemporary designer’s vision and technical brilliance. Through master craftsmanship and unparalleled artistry, Wallace continues to push the boundaries of what jewellery can be, inspiring future generations of jewellery creators and innovators to explore the intersection of tradition, technique, and transformative design.

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