On September 2, in Lingbao Village, Wujiagang District, Yichang City, Hubei Province, villager Liao Chuanxing started a day of creating root carvings. With the brushing of debris, the three courtyards and five eyes of the characters on the root carvings have begun to take shape.
Over the past 36 years, Liao Chuanxing has created nearly 10,000 root carving works, adhering to the promotion of traditional culture.
Liao Chuanxing is 53 years old this year. He has a soft spot for painting since he was a child. At the age of 17, he began to learn the art of root carving.
He is obsessed with the creation of root carvings. He is root carving all day long except for eating and sleeping. Sometimes he can not sleep for a day or two in a row in order to complete a work.
Root carving is a traditional folk craft with a long history.
Although the production of root carving pays attention to "three parts of labor and seven parts of nature", it still needs to go through processes such as soaking, scraping, air-drying, conception, blanking, and fine carving, which greatly tests the care and patience of root carving artists.
For 36 years, Liao Chuanxing has been sticking to his hometown, exploring and developing traditional root carving culture and techniques.
He also took the initiative to "touch the Internet" and put his root carving works on the e-commerce platform for display. Many netizens contacted him to buy after seeing it.
In addition, he will guide the villagers to create carvings and promote the development of the local root carving industry.
Today, Liao Chuanxing has three apprentices, and his own youngest son has been in touch with root carving since he was two or three years old, and the root carving works he is currently creating are also decent.
Liao Chuanxing is currently carving Qu Yuan, and he hopes that Qu Yuan's lofty morals will not only be engraved on the yellow dragon wood, but also engraved in the hearts of generations.
(Zhang Qianlong and Zhou Xingliang)
Responsible editor: [Wu Tao]