Vivid the Monkey King.
Xiao Zhanxing attaches great importance to the inheritance of intangible culture.
Li Cuiwei’s work "Happy Birthday to the Eight Immortals"
Fengcheng "Xiao Pai Miansu" Guan Gong
Li Cuiwei took a group photo with her works at the second folk craft exhibition in Dongguan.
Qingyuan
Small-faced people make big souls.
During this double festival, I walked into the Xiaopai dough sculpture museum in Qingcheng District, Qingyuan, and the Monkey King, Guan Gong and Lu Bu … the colorful dough sculptures were lifelike, which made people exclaim. In Qingyuan Cultural Center, Guan Gong, a vivid intangible cultural heritage of Fengcheng "Xiaopai dough sculpture", often attracts many visitors, and its inheritor is Xiao Zhanxing, who is over 60 years old. He is the fourth generation descendant of Xiao School’s dough figurines, known as "dough figurine Xiao". At the age of 6, he followed his grandfather Xiao Lao to learn. Although he is no longer young, Xiao Zhanxing is still full of energy. He spends a lot of time studying history books and Chinese and foreign picture books every day, and skillfully combines Chinese traditional color sculpture skills with modern sculpture skills to form a unique dough sculpture technique.
● Work hard and look at "opening up"
Xiao Zhanxing is best at making heroes in Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. He can show the muscles, bones and hair of the characters incisively and vividly, which is amazing. Many of his ingenious techniques of making dough sculptures were explored in more than 50 years of creative practice. Experts from the Committee of Experts on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Qingcheng District believe that Xiao Zhanxing’s works combine artistic essences such as sculpture, painting, Peking Opera, history and literature, which are both traditional and innovative.
Xiaopai dough figurines are mostly based on fairy tales, dramas and historical figures, with wheat flour as the main raw material. After being processed and colored, they are shaped into vivid artistic images by means of kneading, rubbing and kneading, and by means of expression such as inserting sticks, hanging lines and embossing. Chang ‘e in graceful attire, Guan Gong with glaring eyes, Red Rabbit with braying hooves and bloody veins, and Lu Bu, the god of war who is aggressive in valor, are all endowed with fresh vitality under Master Xiao’s hand, and the details of facial features, clothes and weapons are handled very exquisitely.
In the inheritance of China’s traditional craft sculpture, whether a work is vivid or not depends mainly on the characterization of the details of the characters’ heads, commonly known as "opening faces". Xiao Zhanxing accurately grasped the changes in the muscle structure of the characters’ faces, and exaggerated them according to his own understanding. His expression was just right, which made different characters present different inner worlds. Xiao Zhanxing’s dough sculpture works are deeply loved and collected by art connoisseurs at home and abroad, and a classic work often needs to wait for 4~6 months.
● Show and spread Chinese culture through live broadcast.
In 1988, Xiao Zhanxing came to work in splendid china Folk Culture Village by chance. "In the 1990s, many Hong Kong people were curious about dough figurines. I once made dough figurines for some celebrities." According to Xiao Zhanxing, you only need to master the techniques of "one seal, two kneading, three inlays and four rolling" if you are quick in dough modeling, but it is not easy to achieve both form and spirit. In the studio, Xiao Zhanxing wears glasses, from making a skeleton and shaping, and then kneading, rubbing, lifting the skin of a person with noodles, and then using a knife to point, cut, carve, delimit, shape a body, hands, head and face, and put on various colors of hair accessories and clothes, which moves like flowing water.
In order to better promote dough sculpture culture, Xiao Zhanxing set up a studio in Qingyuan in 2019. In addition to opening the door to teach students, he also taught and broadcast live on the short video platform. A desk, two skillful hands, and small dough are endowed with new life in the fingers, so that netizens all over the world can intuitively experience the fun of "kneading people". After a few minutes, the colorful dough will become vivid characters, and the charm and movements of the face are portrayed to the extreme. Tens of thousands of people watched the live broadcast at most. With the blessing of the new forces of the Internet, the ancient Chinese craftsmanship also shaped Xiao Zhanxing into the "online celebrity" in the dough-making industry.
● Let the minority’s intangible craftsmanship become popular.
After thousands of years’ development, dough sculpture has become a kind of material that can not be ignored in the study of historical archaeology, folklore, sculpture and aesthetics. Dough sculpture works not only have the style of traditional painting in China, but also have the simple flavor of folk art, and are deeply loved by people because of their low cost, long preservation time and high artistic appreciation.
At the end of September this year, seven projects, including Xiaopai dough sculpture, The Legend of Feixia and The Legend of Longtang, were approved to be included in the list of the ninth batch of district-level intangible cultural heritage representatives in Qingcheng District and announced to the public after being evaluated by the meeting of the expert committee on the protection of intangible cultural heritage in Qingcheng District. When everyone is curious about why Xiao School’s dough figurines have a unique aesthetic appeal, Xiao Zhanxing tells the secret: a figure dough figurine with both form and spirit must have a deep understanding of the historical background of the characters created, not only trying to figure out the prototype, referring to the surrounding literature, but also making the charm that he wants to express through skills and techniques.
In Qingyuan, the skill of Xiao School dough sculpture has been widely spread. In order to inherit the dough sculpture skills, Xiao Zhanxing has widely accepted his disciples. In the past ten years, his disciples have become the best in the dough sculpture industry, and won gold medals in international competitions many times, which has played a significant role in promoting the development of dough sculpture, food sculpture and other industries. The seal of Xiao School is molded on every surface, which may be the best interpretation of Xiao Zhanxing’s ingenuity. Xiao Zhanxing said: "As a kind of folk street culture and art, dough sculpture has become an international work of art through the unremitting efforts of generations of folk artists. Behind the dough sculpture culture is the inheritance of Chinese traditional culture, and it is also my emotion for dough sculpture culture. It is a responsibility and a glory to devote myself to the promotion of dough sculpture culture. "
Dongguan
Mud tires "wear" clothes
During the long vacation, many people went to the art exhibition to see the "little clay figurine"-for example, the provincial intangible project "Tea Mountain Silk Dress Lantern", and the clay figurine wearing silk and flowers was different and exquisite; Or a clay doll for ladies’ wear, holding a banquet under the palm-sized "osmanthus tree", which is so festive. The clay sculpture works created by a female artist in Dongguan bring different pleasure to tourists.
● Garlic skin skillfully makes lotus petals.
At the second exhibition of fine folk arts and crafts in Dongguan, the work "Eight Immortals Celebrating their Birthday" by Chashan Silk Dress Lantern was an eye-opener. This is specially created by Li Cuiwei, the representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage project "Chashan Silk Dress Lantern" in Guangdong Province, for the "Golden Week". Inspired by the custom of "praying for the Eight Immortals" in Dongguan’s old festivals: a colorful New Year picture with seasonal fruits, adults praying for health and beauty, and children waiting to share fruits … From Li Cuiwei’s childhood memory, "Eight Immortals" has intersected with Dongguan’s folk customs, rich life and other concepts.
Three months ago, it didn’t go well. Li Cuiwei encountered a problem when making the first character "He Xiangu". The "Lotus" held by the character couldn’t find a suitable material-clay sculpture was poor and clever, paper-cut was thin, and light clay was too "cartoon", so she couldn’t start at the moment. On Tanabata this year, Li Cuiwei visited Tanabata Tribute Table in Wangniudun Town, and was pleasantly surprised to find that local skillful women made flowers with garlic clothes, but the effect was confusing. When she came back, she did the same thing, peeling off a garlic, selecting a full garlic clove, tearing off the garlic coat with tweezers, and trimming it with scissors, so that there was a tender and bright "petal". Soon, a "lotus" slightly larger than the thumb cover was completed, but it was still a little plain. Li Cuiwei had a brainwave and took out her lipstick-that’s how the blush of "He Jian" came from.
Li Cuiwei said that the folklore of "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" has the meaning of "facing difficulties and going forward" and conveys the belief of pursuing beauty. She hopes to pass on this kind of "kindness" to every audience.
● I hope that the inheritors can "eat by craft"
During this long vacation, Li Cuiwei is basically not idle. She is making a group of tea mountain silk lantern works related to firefighters, and is ready to participate in the "Guangdong Fire Seal" cultural and creative works design competition. Chashan Silk Dressed Lantern is a small clay figurine dressed in satin, which originated in Chashan, Dongguan, and the earliest doll prototype can be traced back to Wen Tianxiang.
Li Cuiwei said that "keeping pace with the times" in the topic selection and "being inclusive" in the material selection have made the skills of Chashan Silk Dress Lantern immortal-for example, the "astronaut" she created last year, the helmet was cut with a 3D printed mask, and the process of wrapping beads and pasting metal beads was also used. However, in recent years, she has felt the pressure of inheritance more and more. Not long ago, a young man came here with great admiration, but he came back sadly, because he was told that "working as a silk lantern does not earn money". This makes Li Cuiwei somewhat sad. She said that she has a little savings and doesn’t need to make a living by craft, but young people have to solve their livelihood problems.
Chashan Silk Dress Lantern has not yet found a way to realize it. Due to the need of skills, each doll is hand-made (including kneading clay tires and cutting clothes), with small output and not much price advantage. However, Li Cuiwei is making adjustments in combination with the direction of "Chaowan": designing 12 zodiac dolls, adding personalized and DIY elements, and controlling the price within 100 yuan. She hopes that young people who inherit Chashan Silk Dress Lantern can "eat by craft" in the future.
Text, map/Guangzhou Daily All-Media Reporter Cao Jing, Xie Yingjun
