Patrick Chu of Loiminchay: Pens of Extravagant Beauty

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Loiminchay's first collection was the elegantly simple Qin Long collection, featuring an extra-large body of solid ebonite with either a white or green jade clip.

Pens of Extravagant Beauty

The Imperial Garden and Imperial Theater is mostly used to entertain the Emperor, his royal family and relatives. These are two impressive structures. The Imperial gardens have walls made of tinted glass bricks of various colors and porcelain in very intricate designs. These materials were extremely rare in ancient times. The Imperial Garden maki-e pen captures part of the past with detailed drawings influenced by those walls and structures.
     The Imperial Theater, rising on the east side of the axis of Repose and Longevity, is a resplendent three-story theatrical pavilion, suitably known as Flowing Music, the biggest and most elaborate of its kind in the Forbidden City. There is a stage on every level, though the bottom one was the largest and most often used. Three ceiling openings connected to the second story and five floor wells leading to a cellar were provided for staging political religious pageants. The ceiling of this theatre and many other smaller theatres all have spectacular designs. The Imperial Theatre pen uses one of the theatre ceilings as inspiration for its design.

Maki-e lacquer painting is labor intensive and time consuming work, particularly for such intricate designs. We selected 3 master artists in Japan to create this 3-pen set, one pen per master. Design sketches, along with reference materials were sent to them. The masters then worked on transferring our design ideas and sketches to supplied ebonite pen bodies (which we had made in France). Relief motifs, genuine gold dusting, abalone shell and precious metal inlay, intricate and detailed drawings, etc., were also applied to the pens. Eight months later, we received the first set of prototype. The prototypes were shipped to France for assembly with 18K white gold rings, 18K 2-tone gold nibs (from Germany), ebonite feeder, and ink fill system. We had 2 more revisions (and one year's time) after that, hence two sets of prototypes before we finally introduced them to the public.

Only eight sets were made of Loiminchay's limited-edition Erotica du Japon collection based on shunga, the erotic variant of traditional Japanese ukio-e.

GS: What are the prices of your pens?
PC: Our collections range (list) from US$500 (OPUS RB) to $18,000 (Door Gods 2-pen set), to $70,000 (Forbidden City Green Jade FP)

GS: How would someone go about buying a Loiminchay pen?
PC: We have about 15 authorized US dealers, and a few overseas dealers in Canada, France, Germany and the Far East. Collectors usually go to their favorite dealers for our pens. Many would contact us for dealers near them. [Loiminchay's site: http://loiminchay.com.]

GS: Tell us about your personal background.
PC: There is not much to talk about my childhood. I was born in Hong Kong, in a family of many brothers and sisters. I am in the middle. I studied Chinese painting since childhood and developed a love of Chinese arts and culture since then. In graduate school, I majored in Fine Arts — painting.

The Forbidden City All-Jade collection features fountain pens in icy jade, yellow jade and black jade.

GS: Give us a rundown of your career before starting your current business.
PC: Before I started designing and manufacturing writing instrument, I always worked in creative direction. My last job is the president of Loiminchay advertising.

GS: How has your life changed since starting your pen business?
PC: It's more challenging.

GS: Give us a picture of your daily routine. What's the best part of your day? The worst part?

PC: Around 7 a.m. till noon I would be involved in phone conversations with my factories and vendors. In the afternoon I would be working on planning, email replies, design, office works... etc. The best part of the day is when prototypes come back as good as (or better than) I envisioned. The worst part is when deliveries are delayed by couriers.

GS: Tell us a bit about your personal life, your family, hobbies...
PC: I have a habit of turning my hobbies into work. I like to be involved with activities that I deem interesting. For the time being, it is dancing, along with others. I am now also working on promoting performing artists to the Far East in my spare time.

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