China News Service, Urumqi, February 18th (Pan Qi) The spring breeze in February is like scissors, and Bai Liling, the third-generation disciple of Xu Naizheng, a city-level intangible cultural heritage inheritor in Urumqi, also has a pair of magical scissors.
A piece of red rice paper is folded in half several times, cut out, and the word "spring" appears vividly on the paper.
The bright moon may not be able to decorate your windows every day, but paper-cutting can.
Paper cutting, also known as paper carving, is a hollow art.
In recent years, Xinjiang folk paper-cut art has been exuding vitality in the hands of young people including Bai Liling.
This non-heritage inheritor does not "cut" the list
Walking into Bai Liling's paper-cut studio, a huge paper-cut work about 3 meters long attracted the attention of reporters.
This work synthesizes the representative building of Xinjiang, the Grand Bazaar, the Red Mountain in Urumqi, and the image of dancing.
The image of the Grand Bazaar is lifelike, and the dance movements are stretched and vigorous, revealing a strong "Xinjiang flavor".
Bai Liling introduced that this work is called "Building the Chinese Dream Together", which took one year to be hand-carved and created by three generations of masters and apprentices. It won the gold medal in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Arts and Crafts Exhibition.
Bai Liling holds a carving knife and is creating.
Photo by Pan Qi
Many people say that Bai Liling has a pair of "skillful hands", which may be a talent.
Bai Liling's mother is a paper-cutting expert, and she can produce beautiful patterns with three bends and two bends.
This fascinated Bai Liling when she was a child.
For the art of paper-cutting, Bai Liling quit her job and studied under Xu Naizheng.
The teacher also specially sent her to the paper-cut base in Hebei Province to study.
Soon, she mastered techniques such as fine grain carving, dot dyeing, and mounting.
Bai Liling said that when she cuts paper, she often stays up all night, forgetting that there is rice cooking in the pot and water in the pot.
But what a blessing it is to be able to turn a hobby into a career and achieve economic freedom.
Opening Bai Liling's collection of works, paper-cutting has a wide range of themes and rich content, from portraits, landmarks, to Xinjiang dances, musical instruments, paper-cutting works are full of characteristics and lifelike.
She said that in order to create more and better paper-cut works, it is necessary to go deep into various places in Xinjiang to find inspiration from the lives and labors of the masses.
Today, in her studio, there are not only red paper-cut works, but also various red certificates.
But for Bai Liling, the calluses on her hands are the best awards.
Self-created tutorial "paper" is inheritance
Paper-cutting is not only a skill, but also a kind of inheritance. Bai Liling wants to teach paper-cutting skills to more people.
"Teaching children the technology of intangible cultural heritage, making them interested in intangible cultural heritage, and learning from it, is what I hope to see." Since 2012, Bai Liling has been taught by many primary and secondary schools, vocational schools and communities in Urumqi. Hired as a paper-cut teacher, he gave thousands of lectures and attended tens of thousands of people.
Almost every time Bai Liling went to school to give lectures, she would "procrastinate".
In her own words, "Students often have more than enough to say."
"Teacher Bai, teach me to cut a rabbit again." "Teacher Bai, can you teach me to cut the word 'Fu'?"
The work "Building the Chinese Dream Together" hangs in Bai Liling's studio.
Photo by Pan Qi
In the expectation of the students, Zhongbai Liling opened up a new teaching platform, started to operate the Douyin account, and became an "Internet celebrity" anchor.
"I specially recorded a series of paper-cutting online lessons, and played them on platforms such as Douyin, which attracted many people to come here to learn paper-cutting." She adjusted the video mode of her mobile phone and fixed it on the stand, prepared paper-cutting and carving knife, and opened the The light is projected onto the paper-cut.
In less than 10 minutes of recording time, the wrist was flipped, and a New Year's Rabbit paper-cut gradually took shape.
Up to now, Bai Liling has uploaded more than 30 videos to Douyin.
In addition, Bai Liling holds several paper-cut public welfare training classes every year, teaching students and residents paper-cut for free.
Today, she has trained more than 100 apprentices, including many art students and professional skill leaders.
Li Runan, a high school student in Urumqi, has been learning the art of paper-cutting from Bai Liling since she was 11 years old.
In her eyes, Bai Liling's teaching is very strict, from cutting to engraving to dyeing, every skill has a high standard of completion.
"In order to cut a little swallow, Mrs. Bai instructed me and revised it dozens of times."
Today, Li Runan has grown into Bai Liling's little assistant. They not only complete the entries together, but starting this year, Li Runan can even attend activities for the teacher alone.
Cultural and creative derivatives polish the "intangible cultural heritage business card"
In addition to inheritance, Bai Liling has also played new tricks in paper-cutting over the years.
In order to let the public understand and love the art of paper-cutting, Bai Liling admitted that innovation is the most important thing.
Paper-cutting was first used to decorate house windows, but the traditional paper-cutting style is already too high-brow and not suitable for modern people's aesthetics.
"I have been exploring how to turn the ancient art of paper-cutting into life and fashion, and open up multiple ways of communication. Wear paper-cutting on the body, print it on lamps, mobile phone cases, canvas bags, and packaging boxes. In this way, the experience of intangible cultural heritage will start from' From cloudy to 'clear at a glance'. Combining old crafts and new styles to make paper-cut cartoon characters, the cute and delicate images may quickly attract young people."
During the Spring Festival this year, 500 pieces of paper-cut T-shirts made by Bai Liling were sold, earning 50,000 yuan.
It can be seen that breaking the outdated form of expression, "intangible cultural heritage" works are favored by the market.
"This year, I plan to create a series of paper-cut material packages with Xinjiang characteristics, so that more people like 'intangible cultural heritage'." (End)