Narrator: Lu Liuqing, the inheritor of Guangdong embroidery
When I was a teenager, I was called "Kao", not to say how beautiful I looked, but to praise my good craftsmanship.
In the old days, the Guangdong region called embroidery "making flowers". The embroidery is bright in color and very festive. However, embroidery is not easy. Take the embroidered lychee, red fruit green leaves, branches have posture, leaves have veins, fruit has grains, must be embroidered fine and elegant. Fine, the work is out of the charm.
In the "Ink Dragon Diagram" I embroidered a few years ago, in order to embroider the clouds around the dragon's body, I needed to manually subdivide a silk thread into many strips, so thin that it could float in the air. A large cloud of mist is embroidered like this. The 3 of us embroidered in a row for half a year. A needle, a lead, it's like talking to embroidery, it feels so good!
Nails, pads, spelling, embellishment, these techniques are not difficult to learn, but the mystery behind them, I have been aware of more than 60 years and dare not say that I have fully understood.
Guangdong embroidery, which has been famous for hundreds of years, has been changing with the times. For example, in history, because of a large number of exports overseas, Guangdong embroidery has the shadow of Western oil painting, paying attention to white space and light and shadow changes, and Chinese and Western compatibility, which has made it distinctive. For example, we learn the chaotic needle embroidery and double-sided embroidery techniques of Su embroidery, and let the broad embroidery integrate the advantages of "flat, qi, fine, dense, uniform, smooth, harmonious, and light".
People say that embroidery is the hard work of "ten fingers and five armors", and all I experience is happiness. Before the founding of New China, the art of embroidery was passed on to men and not to women. The new society gave women the opportunity to receive guidance from masters, and at the age of 17, I was already the most skilled eighth-level worker. At that time, the state said that "super Britain catches up with the United States", and our Huangpu Embroidery Society made a "super e catch willow", and "willow" is me.
Now, with the support of the government, I have opened a studio, brought apprentices, engaged in public welfare teaching, doing cultural creation, and busy every day. The most proud thing in this life is that the fingers have not stopped, and the needles have not been put down.
(Interview and collation by reporters Wang Zhongyao and Wu Chunyan)
Source: Guangming Daily (December 24, 2021, 01 edition)
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Yongqun
Editor: Xing Yanyan