Our Story

My father writes Chinese characters and carves them into small stone seals, like the red stamps you'll see on our pieces.

He loved old books and classical writing from a young age. Years later, during a hard time in his life, he held on to the brush and the carving knife like a lifeline. He threw himself into them, and he hasn't stopped since.

In 1996 he named his studio 常樂齋 (Cháng lè zhāi). 齋 (zhāi) means studio. When I asked him what the name meant, he said he wanted a joy that lasts. There are two ways to write cháng, and both can mean long. He chose 常 over 長. 長 is a length, he told me, and a length has an end. 常 is what keeps going.

Our house always smelled like ink. He made me practice as a kid, and I wanted to be anywhere else. As soon as I was old enough to get out of it, I did.

It didn't last. When it came time to choose a major in college, I somehow ended up in Chinese literature. Before long I was reading the kind of old books my father loved and sitting down with a brush again, without anyone asking me to. The ink had been there the whole time. I had just stopped noticing it.

He is still at his desk in Taipei, writing and carving as he always has. I'm here, an ocean away, turning his work into prints for homes like yours.

Each piece begins with a Chinese character, and you don't need to read Chinese to find one that means something to you. I hope yours becomes a word to live by.

— Ian
Chang Le Studio, est. 1996