Text/small water droplets
"Mom, as long as I learn to paint, I don't have to add clothes for the New Year." This sentence was said by a woman named Yin Shao'ai. It is also because of this sentence that she has achieved a glorious life of gourd painting. As a result, as the fourth generation inheritor of weihui craft gourd, she entered people's vision. She is now the legal representative of Xinxiang Wenhua Painting Co., Ltd., and has successively won the honorary titles of "Xinxiang March 8Thirth Red Flag Bearer", "Strong Woman", and "Xinxiang City Qiao Daughter-in-law Entrepreneurship and Employment Demonstration Base". The craftsmanship painting gourd she created has long been approved as one of the five batches of intangible cultural heritage projects in Weihui City.
In 1965, Yin Shaoai was born in Jiaohaotun Village, Liuzhuang Township, Weihui City, Henan Province. She is gifted and intelligent, and since childhood, she has shown the artistic genes of her ancestors. She successively studied painting with Liu Shuhua and Liu Xilan in her village. Usually save money by buying brush paint. Obsessive circle drawing became a note flowing in her blood. When I was in middle school, I could paint a lot of middle schools, let my father go to the street to set up a stall to sell paintings, and earn some pocket money for the family.
Yin Shao loves to observe, is good at research, and skillful in application. At the end of the 1980s, after the marriage of Hecaozhuang Village, Yin Shaoai was still obsessed with painting. She has successively studied Chinese painting from Ren Chunsen, a well-known painter in Weihui City, studied calligraphy with Yuan Jinglin, a member of the Weihui Zhongshu Association, studied calligraphy for six years, studied brand painting with Teacher Wang Zijian, and learned clay sculpture from Teacher Chen Yusheng. At that time, the lives of urban and rural residents gradually improved, renovation and building of houses became a new trend, and glass naves began to enter the family. She went to the city to secretly study in a shop with a hot business in the glass hall. When I went home, I bought a pair of middle hall paintings and went back. Day and night, she carefully pondered and studied how the paintings in the middle hall were obtained from behind the glass, and how to make the pictures close and far dense and three-dimensional. She secretly removed all the small frames with photos hanging on the wall of her home and tried to draw in the middle of the painting. Kung Fu pays off, three days and three nights, the method is studied. Since then, Yin Shao'ai has worked as a middle hall from a family workshop to later open a glass painting shop at Weihui South Station. Her handicrafts became a sought-after commodity in the surrounding countryside for a time.
The Glass Hall is a product of a period, and what really makes Yin Shao'ai famous is the advent of her gourd painting crafts and the influence of the painting process in northern Henan. Three generations of Yin Shao Aizu have had architectural painting and gourd painting techniques. According to Yin Shao'ai, her ancestor, Yin Quan during the Qing Dynasty, made gourds into tools and eating utensils, and developed the craft gourd making through learning and studying from teachers. Became the inventor of the first generation of gourd technology in the Yin family. After that, Yin Quan passed on the craft gourd making skills to future generations, and Yin's descendants were mostly engaged in craft gourd making, on the basis of inheriting the achievements of their predecessors, they cleverly on the gourd, with poetry and words, landscape landscapes, so that the carving gourd craft was vivid and perfect. After a hundred years of development, the processing of gourds has reached dozens of varieties, and the process has ranged from simple to complex. Coming to Yin Shaoai's generation, he is already the fourth generation of Weihui gourd making skills inheritors. In her hands, the gourd is given different personalities, especially combined with calligraphy and painting, showing a unique style. Craft modes include needle engraving, engraving, branding, embossing, painting and so on. The main products are auspicious gourds, carved gourds, special-shaped gourds, painted gourds, odd-shaped gourds, finger gourds, etc., and the patterns presented are vivid. The cultivation and breeding of gourd varieties has expanded year by year. There are dozens of excellent varieties such as large Asian waist gourd, Central Asian waist gourd, small Asian waist gourd, large vase gourd, figure-eight gourd, swan gourd, hand twisted gourd, extra large scoop gourd, large scoop gourd, medium scoop gourd, small scoop gourd, apple gourd, winter melon gourd, slender long handle gourd, thick long handle gourd, porridge gourd, small stick gourd, knot gourd, egg gourd, ornamental pumpkin gourd, mini pumpkin gourd, etc. His works are exported to Zhengzhou, Hebi, Anyang, Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian and other places, and are collected as treasures by many craft enthusiasts inside and outside the province. Houhe Town has thus become the ornamental gourd planting base and gourd breeding base in Weihui City.
As a representative of folk arts and crafts, Yin Shao'ai strengthened the cultivation of intangible cultural heritage inheritors and passed on the skills to the fifth generation of inheritors Wang Junsi (Yin Xiaoyu, Yin Xiaoyang, Lu Erlong, Li Lin) without reservation. At present, Yin Shaoai is in charge of Xinxiang Wenhua Painting Co., Ltd. has more than 50 employees in the process of painting, painting and carving, and many employees have come from poor families.
How many late nights, under the lights, Yin Shao loves to pour his mind, holding the gourd, conceiving the pattern, the layout is beautiful, Seiko creates each gourd craft; how many spring and autumn, sweat, Yin Shao loves to do his best, staring at the gourd, looking at the details, the ingenuity of each gourd finished product; how many dawns, in the morning light, Yin Shao loves to hide passion, carries the gourd, sets off to chase dreams, the vast intangible cultural heritage, bright color Wei Hui.
Time has witnessed the sublimation of craftsmanship, and the ingenuity of the works has shown the standard. Yin Shao'ai's gourd paintings "Xishan Smoke and Clouds", "Don't Forget your original heart, continue to move forward", "Taihang Public Servant Wu Jinyin", "Spring Dawn" and other praises. In October 2020, Xinxiang News Network used the form of live broadcast, with the theme of "Towards Our Well-off Life", focusing on the live broadcast to introduce the beautiful experience of Yin Shao's love gourd painting "branding" a happy life. In the same year, more than 100 works of Yin Shao'ai craft gourd were selected into the "Henan Province First Secretary Poverty Alleviation Achievements Exhibition center" (China Consumption Poverty Alleviation Life Hall) in Zhengzhou City, and many merchants, mass organizations and other celebrities have signed up to order a series of gourd handicrafts, give blessings and birthday gifts, decorate treasures, enter the hall, quality life, and praise the times.