□ Zhang Keqi
People have their own aspirations, the road is in the heart; the mountains and rivers are very different, and the weather is ever-changing.
Linqu, where I am located, although it is mountainous and hilly, is a place with an exceptionally deep cultural heritage, the hometown of calligraphy and painting, the hometown of small dramas, the hometown of strange stones, the hometown of poetry, and the laurel of the national cultural model county, which makes it shine and makes the world look at it with astonishment. In a region with a population of less than 930,000, there are as many as 30,000 cultural and artistic talents, of which there are more than 130 members of the national art association of the Eight Classics of Zheng'er, which is really vast and spectacular.
As a person who has been working in the propaganda and cultural department for a long time and has a strong literary and artistic complex, I am often deeply touched and inspired by these people. Among them are teachers, entrepreneurs and administrative cadres, but more ordinary workers, authentic farmers and freelancers with unstable lives. Although they have their own circumstances and encounters, and even some live a difficult and humble life, their hard work and diligent pursuit of art are unwavering, showing a decisive posture of dedication to art. Because I have dealt with them a lot, over the years, I have not only shared their happiness and glory, but also deeply experienced their hardships and difficulties, and every time I think of them, I feel thousands of emotions and respects.
Nie Shuhong is one of them. This woman, born in 1974, looks like a wave, but she has a surging artistic heart. From the age of thirteen or fourteen to become fascinated by painting, to grow into the backbone author and inheritor of Linqu hand-painted New Year paintings, she hid in small buildings almost every day to become a unity, obsessed with her own art world, living both poor and rich, low-key and introverted and rich. In this era of public noise and fear of being drowned out, there are fewer and fewer artists who can truly withstand loneliness and keep poverty. I have asked her more than once to regret choosing such a path? She always smiled lightly: I like to draw.
Linqu hand-painted New Year paintings began in ancient times "door god painting" and "kangtou painting", originated from traditional woodblock new year paintings, the content is based on local life scenes, customs and folk customs, with red, yellow, blue, green and purple five colors as the mainstay, directly on the paper for design, line, coloring, with distinct uniqueness. And in the long-term inheritance and practice, skillfully integrated into the linqu area of folk fabric, sculpture, stone carvings and other traditional art expression methods, the composition is full, the shape is exaggerated, the color is warm, the style is simple, the content is festive, rich in local atmosphere and a strong sense of the times, and has increasingly become a distinctive artistic treasure in the art garden.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Linqu had a climax in the creation of hand-painted New Year paintings, with more than 500 Authors of New Year Paintings and more than 100 backbone talents, including Lu Xueqin, who grew from an authentic farmer to a director of the China Artists Association and vice chairman of the Shandong Provincial Artists Association, and Fu Peize, Hou Jide, and Zhu Fengying, who were well-known in the art world for their New Year painting creations. At that time, Linqu hand-painted New Year paintings not only frequently won national awards, but also entered the Beijing exhibition for three consecutive times, and nearly 100 works were selected by the state to be exhibited in 9 countries such as the United States, Britain and France, which caused strong repercussions. Linqu was also named "China's Modern Folk Painting Town" by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and its reputation spread far and wide.
However, with the changes and development of the times, especially due to the narrow market space and relatively low economic benefits, Linqu hand-painted New Year paintings have gradually declined. By around 2010, not to mention development, even inheritance had become a big problem. Seeing that this cultural treasure with local characteristics was about to be lost, a group of people of insight were impatient and ran to the call, which was finally highly valued by the leaders of the county party committee and the county government. In 2014, Li Yongmei, then director of the Linqu County Cultural Center, overcame various difficulties to hold the first hand-painted New Year painting training class, and invited Xu Jing, honorary president of the Chinese Farmers' Calligraphy and Painting Research Association, Liao Kaiming, Shi Zhongmin and other famous peasant painting experts to Linqu to hold a hand-painted New Year painting seminar, thus sounding the clarion call for the inheritance and development of Linqu hand-painted New Year paintings that were in a dilemma. Among these students, there are both art teachers in schools and people who like to draw in society; there are both novice rookies and veterans who have interrupted the creation of hand-painted New Year paintings for many years.
Nie Shuhong, who had just arrived and established, also heard the news and became a student of this training class. Before that, she had been obsessed with painting for more than ten years, and even delayed her examination for this reason. After working in the county silk reeling factory, she happened to hear that the county cultural center was running a Chinese calligraphy and painting correspondence university training class, and she was overjoyed, despite her physical fatigue, riding a bicycle from Yeyuan to participate, and following Hou Jide and He Guangguang to systematically learn theoretical knowledge and painting skills. In order to be able to participate in the training on time, she often transferred shifts with her co-workers, and after learning to go back to the day shift and night shift, she was so tired that she even fainted several times. Nie Shuhong is a very shy person, the class is too much to be embarrassed to talk to the workers again, and then a bite of the teeth and a stomp, simply resigned to open a small gallery, miserable business, barely make ends meet. Many people thought that she was self-inflicted, and Nie Shuhong also felt confused about it, but she never regretted it.
Due to her good talent and hard work and hard work, She Shuhong has made great progress in the creation of hand-painted New Year paintings, and has gradually entered a better state with the guidance and help of many teachers. But she knows that art is endless, and only by constantly learning and seeking can she continue to improve. Although the hand-painted New Year painting market is still not very prosperous, and the economic conditions at home are not rich, as long as there is a learning opportunity, whether it is in the county or the city in the province of the whole country, she will resolutely and resolutely participate, and cherish the hard work and hard work. Many people are worried about her: paying so much, and not seeing economic benefits, is it worth it? She is often confused about this, but she can quickly get out of the short downturn and continue to do what she likes. Now, with the increase of age, it is not only her personal preferences that support her original intentions, especially after the successful selection of Linqu hand-painted New Year paintings in 2016 into the provincial intangible cultural heritage project, Nie Shuhong, as the inheritor, has said more and more about her responsibility and mission in her words: Now the county attaches so much importance to hand paintings and provides so many good conditions, if those of us do not insist on not working hard, maybe our treasure will really disappear in many years, what a pity! When she said this, her eyes both radiated a deep worry, but also a light of determination and self-confidence.
Heaven rewards diligence, and merit is not donated. In the constant flow of time, Nie Shuhong, who was once young, has become both mature and calm. With this unchangeable dream of belonging to both herself and hand-painted New Year paintings, she walked forward step by step, and her solid and powerful footsteps moved more and more people. Her works have also been more and more widely recognized, and have been selected for high-level exhibitions such as the Chinese Peasant Painting Exhibition and the National Peasant Painting Exhibition on the 40th Anniversary of Reform and Opening Up, and have repeatedly won awards in national, provincial and municipal competitions. In May 2018, Linqu participated in the launch of the activity of "Sending Affection to the People - Grassroots Under Culture and Entering Linqu Yi Mountain" activity of the Chinese Academy of Art and the unveiling ceremony of the Graduate Practice Base of the China Academy of Arts Lian Ji, Tian Liming, president of the Chinese Academy of Painting of the China Academy of Arts, Liu Wanming, executive vice president of the Graduate School of the China Academy of Arts and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Painting, and dozens of other leaders and experts inspected and guided the Linqu Hand-Painted New Year Painting Transmission Center. The county presented Nie Shuhong's hand-painted Chinese zodiac paintings to the China Academy of Arts, which was highly praised by leaders and experts. For the first time to get such high-level leaders and experts to praise and take a group photo with them, although Nie Shuhong, who is not good at talking, cannot express her inner excitement, the sails of her dreams are once again inflated to the fullest.
Today, Nie Shuhong opens a Jinchengzhai studio on the Daqian Cultural Street in the county seat. This small place is both her creative studio, her framer, and her training center for teaching children to learn hand-painted New Year paintings. This quiet woman, under the seemingly weak appearance, has a strong mental strength that ordinary people do not have. Perhaps to outsiders, she seems a little lonely, but she has never given up singing with her own brush and heart. This song is sung not only to herself, but also to the past, present and future of Linqu's hand-painted New Year paintings!