Making time for his craft

Through a love of craftsmanship and his attention to tiny details, artisan watch and clockmaker, Guo Ming, is putting Chinese horology on the map, Cao Chen reports.

Tucked away in a glass display cabinet in Guo Ming's workshop is an intricate solar-lunar skeletonized clock, where the hour hand is an arbor adorned with the shape of the sun on one side and the moon on the other. Unlike most traditional clocks which are key-wound, this timepiece needs to be hand-wound using its rosewood winding handle.

Inspired by the clock tower in the Swiss capital Bern, this creation was Guo's first handmade clock when he was the apprentice of Swiss independent watchmaker Frank Jutzi. But as exquisite as the clock seems-it was even presented at the Baselworld watch fair in 2017-Guo insists it hardly meets his standard for perfection.

He does, however, concede that it is his "most cherished child". After all, it was this very clock that earned him a place as the youngest Chinese candidate at the prestigious Swiss independent watch and clock-making association-the Academie Horlogere des Createurs Independants.

"My dedication to handmade watches is not merely due to an obsession with clocks. It lies in wanting to show the charm of handmade work and how every part is unique and imbued with the feelings of the artisan," he says, when asked why he decided on this profession.