In Ha Noi capital, when talking about flowers and decorative plants, people always think about well-known flower villages, such as Ngoc Ha, Nhat Tan, Tay Tuu and Me Linh. But in the field of making dried flower, only name was mentioned. He is the craftsman Nguyen Ba Muu. He is the vanguard in making dried flowers and using them to create vivid and colorful pictures.
Self-made man
Nguyen Ba Muu became an orphan when he was a child, so at the beginning, his business was not as smooth as that of other recent prosperous people. Graduating from the Department of Cultivation, Agricultural University, he had much experience in plants and flowers, which helped him a lot in his later work.
Craftsman Nguyễn Bá Mưu, photo by Ngọc Linh
The idea of drying flowers and using them to create pictures came to him unexpectedly. Nearly 40 years ago, several Japanese clients asked him to help them import Vietnamese dried flowers. After a long time searching for materials, an audacious idea came to him that should he build up a dried-flower firm in Vietnam to supply for not only domestic but also foreign market. Since then, he himself studied and researched how to dry flowers and leaves, and then merged them into nice pictures. After more than 20 years studying from 1972 to 1996, he mastered the technique of making dried flowers. He and his family decided to establish a dried-flowers firm in Vietnam. He collected materials from everywhere and turn his house at number 9, Alley 67, Hoàng Văn Thụ Ward, Hoàng Mai District, Hanoi into a flower-processing workshop. To have a completed dried-flowers picture, various stages of drying, dying, conserving, shaping and then creating need to be done. In 1997, he successfully made the first products from dried flowers whose prices were as approximately as a third of imported ones. Since then, he continuously brought into market artworks with various topics including Vietnamese villages, Hanoi old quaters, Đông Hồ folk paintings as well as famous paintings in the world, etc. Craftsman Nguyen Ba Muu believed that besides the decorativeness and high taste of art, these pictures are completely new to everyone so they can attract many customers.
The virtue and “3h”
According to craftsman Nguyen Ba Muu, a person can only be a good dried-flower maker if he has virtue and “3h” including hoa (flower), hóa (chemical), họa (drawing). “Hoa” is the material of the picture. “Hóa” is using technology in cleverly mixing colors to create the most natural colors. “Họa” is the combination between the thought, brain and the craftsman’s artistic sense. Having been through more than a half of lifetime, he always wants to transmit this career to the next generations by operating vocational training courses, in which most students are disabled children. After graduation, many students have opened private shops or become distributors of dried-leave pictures for domestic and foreign markets.
An art picture made from dried flowers. Photo by Ngọc Linh
Dried-flower pictures of Craftsman Nguyen Ba Muu have been taken part in many large-scale domestic exhibitions as well as international ones such as in Korea, France, etc. And they all have received many compliments, especially the ones about Hanoi Capital. In his opinion, this is an interesting topic that only those who have deep love and close connection with the Capital can turn all special features of Hanoi into a picture. That is the reason why the beauty spots and quintessence of Trang An have been described in his pictures lively. Towards the exhibition of the 1000 year anniversary of Thăng Long - Hanoi, craftsman Nguyen Ba Muu will introduce the special and impressive artworks like Cầu Thê Húc (Thê Húc Bridge -1884), Phố Hàng Bạc (Hàng Bạc Street 1919), etc. to help the viewers having deep thought about a thousand-year-old capital. Those pictures will also be the artworks enduring his reputation.
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