Imprints of time
The obsession in the heart
Inheritance at your fingertips
A craftsman
A lifelong artist
"Shou Yi" series of micro-documentaries
Episode 6
《Minnan Yuanshang》
Xu Rongming:
In 1967, I started to learn, the apprentice had to study for three years, and it would be very good if 100 people had 5 people to teach.
Lao Xu is a well-known car craftsman in southern Fujian.
Making a car is an extremely exquisite craft, but also a long and tedious process.
Draw a little, where the head is, where the hands are, where the feet are, probably draw it.
From a piece of wood to a knife ruler, all the steps have been clearly understood.
Choosing a good piece of wood is a basic skill in this craft, with high-grade fir wood as a skeleton and camphor wood used to carve shapes.
The fir wood rots from the outside, you see that the wood is rotten, there is a core in the middle that is very new and hard, the carving is made of camphor wood, because the wood grain is staggered, the carving is not easy to break, and there is camphor oil, and the white ants will die after eating it.
There is not a single nail involved in all the processes of the car, and the traditional Chinese tenon and tenon craft is very useful here, which also tests the master's hand kung fu.
Different people can't make things that are as strong, what you make is broken in three years, what I make has not been broken until now, it has been forty or fifty years and is still very beautiful, the quality of the master depends on this mortise.
A high-calibre car takes months, if not years, of meticulous polishing. Birds and animals, character modeling; slow work produces fine work, but fast and slow is measured. Fast, there must be a fast rhythm; slow, there must be a slow rhythm; master the strength, grasp the measure, a carpenter's lifelong learning is seen between this fast and slow.
The eight-foot bucket room houses the ingenuity and ingenuity of a craftsman for fifty years; as long as you pick up the knife and ruler, time will be quiet!
After chiseling, sawing, planing, carving and overall assembly, the last process is painting and gilding; the choice of paint and the timing of painting need to rely on years of experience to control.
On an auspicious day, or when the lights are dimmed, the car will be amazing. Here, it is no longer just a craft, but the spiritual sustenance of a group of people, generation after generation of people to firmly pass on this craft, so that it becomes a symbol, flowing for hundreds of generations!
END
Source: Anxi County Rong Media Center
Edit: Ye Yihuang
Review: First Instance | Su Wei Chapter Second Trial | Yang Weiyi Third Trial | Chen Zhiwei