Coat after coat

Natural lacquer, daqi in Chinese, is the sap of the lacquer tree. It is tapped by hand, filtered, and brushed on in coats so thin they are almost clear. Used in China for thousands of years on everything from bowls to furniture, it dries into a hard, warm surface that deepens in lustre as it is handled.

Lacquer does not dry in the air the way paint does. It cures in warmth and humidity, so each coat rests in a damp cabinet before it is sanded smooth and the next one goes on. A single bead passes through that cycle many times over several weeks.

When coats of different colours are laid one over another and then polished back, the layers show through as fine rings and ripples. The pattern depends on how each coat fell and where the polishing stops, so every bead in our bracelet is slightly different from its neighbour.