From Apprentice to Master

During the “cultural revolution” Cao Jieming’s family background denied him access to local high schools after graduating from primary school. After consulting with friends, his father found a school for Cao outside their hometown. Unfortunately the admission notice got lost in the post. It was only when the school contacted him early in the new semester asking why he had not attended that Cao realized what had happened. But by then it was too late. Although he lost the opportunity to continue schooling, Cao did not give up study. After starting work, he spent his evenings buried in books and was eventually admitted to a secondary technical school.

“Our generation has undergone almost all the adversities that ever afflicted our country. When the three years of natural disasters ravaged the country [from 1959 to 1961], I was around six, and always felt hungry. It seemed to me that people should strive hard to improve their living, for example by mastering a skill. This would at least enable them to support themselves in the future. So when the She Inkslab Factory was recruiting workers in 1973, I applied and was taken on,” Cao said. It was his personal interest in painting and sculpture that made him choose to be an inkslab-making worker.

Cao’s father was a plate-making worker in a printing house. Under his influence, as a child Cao Jieming became fond of painting, and often drew pictures at home. “Because of the family’s economic plight at that time, we didn’t have toys or domestic appliances like a radio. We even had to use kerosene lamps at night. So drawing became my main enjoyment. One of my neighbors was an artist. During the day I would watch him paint, and at night I practiced drawing,” Cao recalled. “My later rapid progress could be partly attributed to this early training.” As an apprentice inkslab maker, Cao started with the elementary work of carving lines. His drawing skills, thanks to his love of art since childhood, soon caught the attention of Wang Lüsen, a master of the inkslab making craft.

Wang came from a family that had made inkslabs for three generations. He was hence a renowned inkslab sculptor and expert in antique-finish inkslab making, having written such representative works on the craft as Inkstone Types of All Dynasties in History and Antique-finished Tripod-fashioned Inkstones. “He commended my works, so I became his apprentice,” Cao said. This experience laid a solid foundation for Cao’s later achievements.

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