Duan Gaifang: The "Shou Artist" of Shanxi Folk Art

Recently, the China Folk Writers Association sent a letter of appointment to Duan Gaifang, a former research librarian of the Shanxi Provincial Qunyi Museum, hoping to conduct an exclusive interview with her in the association magazine "Folk Art" to pay tribute to this "shou artist" who is familiar with Shanxi folk art and folk culture.

The 81-year-old Duan Gaifang has white hair, which adds a bit of unique artistic temperament to her. In the heart of this ordinary-looking old lady, there is a treasure house of Shanxi folk art.

For more than 60 years, she has traveled to almost every county and city in Shanxi, gone deep into the countryside to discuss and communicate with folk artists, walked into the customs and new year to feel the culture of the Three Jins, not only established a close relationship with the older generation of folk artists, but also their children and grandchildren are also very familiar with her, affectionately calling her "Duan Grandma".

Some people call her a "living dictionary of Shanxi folk customs" and say that she is a shou artist of Shanxi folk art. Although she is old, she is still busy, doing a lot of desk work for Shanxi folk art. Since the launch of the Shanxi volume project of the Complete Collection of Chinese Arts and Crafts in 2015, she has been busy with this work for eight years now. Her desk is full of paper bags marked with various categories, which are filled with manuscripts and pictures, involving Shanxi paper-cutting, embroidery, face sculpture, woodblock New Year paintings, flower stacking, buckles, textile printing and dyeing, cornskin weaving, flower lanterns, Easter egg paintings, Kang Wei paintings and other categories. She bound and sorted out the various materials she had just sorted out and sent them to Beijing.

"To See" was destined to be the love of her life

Duan Gaifang was born in Qi County in 1941, the fifth oldest in the family, when the soldiers were in chaos, almost sent at birth, and her father died of overwork when she was less than one year old. Grandma's house is the place where Duan Gaifang most often goes. In 1948, Qi County was liberated, the society was too peaceful, and Duan Gaifang went to her grandmother's house more often. Duan Gaifang's family is in Nanguan Village, Qi County, and his grandmother's family is in the city, which is five or six miles away. I remember going to my grandmother's house one year, there were many people around the cultural center in the county town, and the curious Duan Gaifang also came forward to see it, and this glance doomed her to a lifetime of fate with folk art.

In 1950, the state had just promulgated the Marriage Law, and there was a wave of publicity for the Marriage Law across the country. Because people were generally illiterate at that time, the means of propaganda were almost all displayed in prints, comic strips, etc., and these comic strips posted around the cultural center attracted Duan Gaifang like magnets. Every Sunday she would appear at the cultural center on time, almost all the children of school age had gone to school, and the little Duan Gaifang was still dangling in front of the propaganda posters of the cultural center, staring at the paintings posted on the wall, looking at it, just like winter to spring. The people at the cultural center found that every time a comic strip was posted, there would be a loyal small audience who would carefully observe it, never tire of looking at it, and from the time when the comic strip was new, he saw the decolorization and peeling, and the next batch of comic strips was posted again. This strange child attracted the attention of the old curator of the cultural center, and once he asked Duan Gaifang curiously: "Do you like these paintings?" ”

Duan Gaifang was confused, she had not read a book for a few days, she did not know what the word "like" meant. Looking at Duan Gaifang, the old curator asked, "Do you want to see these paintings?" This next paragraph of The change Fang understood, and she nodded affirmatively: "To be seen."

"Would you like to come here and help with some work?"

Duan Gaifang, who grew up looking at his mother's face and looking for work everywhere, was naturally very willing. The old curator took her into the office of the cultural center. A large room was messed with paint, drawing boards, easels and other things, and as soon as she entered the door, she accidentally knocked over a plate of paint, and she quickly packed up the paint plate, washed it and put it away. Since then, Duan Gaifang has become a small handyman in the cultural center, and she is no longer a little girl who looks at comic strips around the courtyard. She diligently washed dishes, washed pens, fetched water, cleaned the tables and chairs and benches for the teachers in the museum, and slowly began to get started, helping to brush the board, beat the paste, frame the painting... The teachers of the cultural center also liked this diligent and clean little girl. After knowing that this little girl's home was five or six miles away from the cultural center, the museum also arranged that she could eat in the nearest canteen at noon. This made Duan Gaifang very happy, the food in the cultural center was better than the family's food, and he could still eat enough.

Her mother didn't ask her why she was busy going into the city every day, and she always thought that the children were just running to her grandmother's house to play. One day in 1958, Duan told her mother that she was going to stay overnight at the city's cultural center. The mother was very surprised, and hurriedly followed her to the cultural center, which made it clear that the old director of the cultural center provided Duan Gaifang with an opportunity to go to night school, because it was too late after class, worried that she was not safe to walk at night, the cultural center provided her with a utility room, so that she could stay after class at night. Her mother was relieved, duan gaifang stayed in the cultural center, did more work, got up early every morning, and she always cleaned the yard first.

At the beginning of the founding of New China, there was a thriving scene everywhere, and once the county was engaged in training the basic cadre militia, a person who could write, draw, and read and hyphenate was needed to train the peasants. In this way, Duan Gaifang was selected to become an officer in the Cultural and Educational Department of the Chengguan Town Commune in the county. Although he was already working in the commune, Duan Gaifang still went to the cultural center every day to attend night school, and followed Jiang Rongxian and Wang Jianxiong, two teachers, to learn to draw, paint colors, and engage in creation. In the same year, Duan Gaifang was also sent to the party school to study, and at the age of 17, she successfully became a reserve party member.

In 1958, the Shanxi Paper-cutting Art Training Class was held in the provincial capital taiyuan, and the Qixian Cultural Center sent two paper-cutting artists, Chang Anzhen and Kang Dexiu, to participate in the training. Chang Anzhen wrapped her little feet, and the county considered that she would have a lot of inconvenience when she went out, so it sent Duan Gaifang as a staff member to the provincial city to participate in the paper-cutting training class. Chang Anzhen was 71 years old at the time, and Duan Gaifang was only 17 years old, and this old man and young man lived in a room for more than three months. In the study of this training class, Duan Gaifang learned a lot of traditional folk paper-cutting techniques with paper-cutting artists from all over the province, and made the first comprehensive understanding of this art form. Chang Anzhen was born in an old-fashioned feudal family, the in-laws are a number of traders in Qi County, although illiterate, but the memory is particularly good, and special skillful, paper-cutting embroidery patterns are good, is a famous qiao daughter-in-law in Qi County. Duan Gaifang benefited greatly from Chang Anzhen and fell in love with these folk arts.

In 1959, Duan Gaifang was admitted to the Shanxi Provincial Art School to study, and officially opened his own artistic path. Duan Gaifang's grandfather was once a famous painter in the eight townships of Ten Mile, and when he was idle, he walked the streets and villages to paint Kang Wai paintings for people's homes. Perhaps this bit of art cell in the gene has been inherited here in Duan Gaifang, coupled with several years of edification and study in the Qixian Cultural Center, Duan Gaifang began to systematically and professionally master the basic knowledge of art and artistic creation skills in the cultural and art school. After graduation, Duan Gaifang was assigned to the Shanxi Provincial Cultural Center and began to excavate and sort out Shanxi folk art wholeheartedly.

It is hard to hide the joy in your heart when you fall into an egg

Duan Gaifang began to go to the countryside frequently after working in the counseling department of the cultural center, "At least twelve or three years, I have not stayed at home during the New Year's Festival, either in the county or in the village, because at that time there was an important task that was to understand the mass cultural activities years ago, and to summarize the results of the activities after the year." I don't come back after years of going down, and I don't come back until the end of these activities. "At that time, the work of the cultural center was mainly to face the grassroots, visit some folk arts, understand the folk activities, sacrifice activities and festivals and customs of Shanxi, and give some training and guidance to folk artists in the province." I have almost run through more than a hundred counties in Shanxi, and the main reason why I didn't go was because I was too sick to get away with too many mountain roads. At first, I went to some Pingchuan county districts, Jinzhong and Xinzhou, and then I took the train to Linfen, Jinnan and other places. I was from the Jinzhong region, and at first I was familiar with the folk art forms in these places, and I didn't have much feeling, and there was nothing that excited me, but when I began to contact the folk art forms in The Southern Jinnan region such as Linfen and Yuncheng, I was shocked. "Today, looking back on the days when I visited Shanxi folk art forms everywhere, Duan Gaifang still can't hide her excitement." When I first came into contact with some things in Jinnan, I was very shocked, and I also read some books that year, and I knew that Jinnan has a profound cultural heritage, is the birthplace of Chinese civilization, and that place in Jinnan is a treasure land, and the accumulation of various folk activities and folk art is very deep. ”

Experiences that leave deep traces in your memory and that you won't be able to forget for decades must be the most nourishing. More than half a century has passed, and I recall the days when I visited Kawazu to turn the lights, and everything seems to be yesterday.

Popular in majiapu and Lijiapu villages in the local monk lou town, Hejin lantern is a form of folk fire performance, mostly at night before and after the Lantern Festival. "At that time, I saw the turning lamp, I felt that these people were really powerful, the turning light process was born from the windmill, originated in the Qing Guangxu years, was developed by local folk artists according to the principle of the windmill, at first only single or double turn, and then gradually developed to several, dozens, dozens of flower lamps at the same time on a lamp stand. At night, dozens of people, hundreds of people in the team turned the lanterns, and the scene was very shocking. Duan Gaifang said that he would go back to the guest house in the county town after seeing the lights of the people' homes, and at that time there was no car in the countryside, so he rented a bicycle with the guest house, and a comrade surnamed Wang of the Cultural Center rode to the village. The road that would go to Sanglou Town was all dirt roads, and the road on the Yellow River beach was trampled by cars and horses, turning into virtual soil, just like the thick snow, and when you stepped on it, you fell into it. When I went during the day, it was good to say that I could find a relatively hard road to ride, and when I saw the people's turn lights at night and then returned to the city, I made a joke. "Twenty or thirty miles from the village to the county seat, it was the middle of the night when the black lights were blind, riding and riding, and accidentally encountered a potholed place and fell down. That day back to the guest house until two or three o'clock in the middle of the night, the people in the guest house will not let me in, I have fallen from head to toe is dirt, the kind of blue rattling cotton monkey that I wore at that time, I can't see what color it is, people think I am fleeing the wilderness to ask for food. Later, the comrades at the cultural center proved that I really lived in this place and let me in. So I packed up and packed up, and when it was dawn, I went to the countryside again. ”

Since about the late 1970s, Duan Gaifang has been visiting villages and towns every New Year's Festival, understanding folk customs, visiting folk artists, and mastering a large number of first-hand information. Once in order to visit The Fenyang paper-cutting artist Zhang Qingying, she rode a 40-kilometer bicycle from Fenyang County to meet this folk paper-cutting artist who was considered to be somewhat "crazy". Duan Gaifang just saw the most "artistic" side of her heart from the so-called madness, very casual and not limited to the rules of the paper-cutting technique, often able to grasp the most soulful place of the work. When Duan Gaifang compiled the paper-cutting part of the Shanxi volume of the Complete Works of Chinese Arts and Crafts, he included those old paper-cutting artists who had already made ancient works and their works.

Achieve others to protect Shanxi folk art

She enthusiastically communicates and learns with each folk artist, carefully collects and organizes their works, and summarizes the characteristics and styles of folk artists. After decades of tireless work, solid rural research visits have allowed her to master a lot of material, make friends with a large number of folk artists, and establish a deep relationship with them.

Wang Yinfeng, the inheritor of Taiyuan Intangible Cultural Heritage Paper-cutting, said of Duan Gaifang: "Teacher Duan is not a title in my heart, but a teacher I truly respect and admire in my heart. In the more than ten years of knowing the teacher, I witnessed the dedication of the teacher, and she took the illness to give us lessons, write books, collect and organize materials, and spent a lot of energy. Treat students and juniors with great care and no reservations. What I admire most is Teacher Duan's thinking, not because of a lifetime of traditional culture and conformity, she knows how to keep pace with the times. I remember that in 2010, when Guo Shulin and I were doing a solo exhibition, at the symposium, the innovation and development direction of our paper-cutting works were criticized by some experts, who believed that paper-cutting should be the best form of window flowers, intangible cultural heritage cannot be innovative, and innovation is not paper-cutting. Among the many experts and scholars, Mr. Duan's understanding and support for us really touched us. ”

Zhao Cuilin, the inheritor of "Gaoping Embroidery", has long admired Teacher Duan Gaifang, "I remember the first time I met Teacher Duan was on TV, when I was not yet 20 years old, but I already had a great interest in embroidery." Teacher Duan on tv is holding a children's hat, talking about shanxi embroidery, I saw a line of small characters under the screen - Shanxi Provincial Mass Art Museum Duan Gaifang, at that time I remembered the name of Teacher Duan, I thought if I could see Teacher Duan himself, so after ten years, the real contact with Teacher Duan was in 2012, my teacher Fan Suping took me to see Teacher Duan, when I saw Teacher Duan with silver hair, my eyes lit up, my dream came true, and finally met Teacher Duan. In 2012, although I have been doing embroidery for more than ten years, I really understand very little knowledge of Shanxi embroidery, just like this, Teacher Duan told me a lot, including the history of Shanxi embroidery, the unique living environment, technical characteristics... I really understood the wonderful embroidery of Shanxi. Remember Teacher Duan said, if you want to do a good job in Gaoping embroidery, go to find the old objects left before, copy it as it is, so that you can learn the essence of Gaoping embroidery work, so that under the continuous guidance of Teacher Duan, I clarified the direction of future embroidery, copied more than 30 children's hats, my embroidery has made rapid progress, grateful to Teacher Duan for letting me find a home on the road of embroidery, and then I only have to continue to work hard to do a good job in Gaoping embroidery, so as to be the essence of a national inheritor. Only in this way can I repay the teacher's kindness to me, the grace of teaching, and the grace of achievement. ”

Wang Yunsheng, a well-known sculpture master in Shanxi, said of Duan Gaifang, and he couldn't help but recall a past event: In 1994, when I had a sudden idea, I wanted to create a large-scale work that represented my own technical level, and after 8 months of production day and night, the character image of "Water Margin" was made into a clay sculpture work. In September of that year, the Shanxi Provincial Department of Culture held a major exhibition of folk art in Shanxi Province in Taiyuan, and I participated in this exhibition, won the gold medal, and also met Teacher Duan at this time. In October, the Ministry of Culture held a major exhibition of Chinese folk art at the National Art Museum of China, Teacher Duan strongly recommended me to participate in this exhibition, because the transportation was not very convenient at that time, I could only take the work by train to check in, and when I arrived in Beijing at the Zhongyuan Art Museum, we were ready to start the exhibition, but when I opened the works that were shipped, I was dumbfounded, and it took 8 months to pay a lot of painstaking works day and night, which were broken during the consignment, and most of the one hundred and eight characters had fewer legs and no arms into a pile of waste. I looked foolishly for a while, anxious tears fell out, seeing that the next day was launched, I was discouraged, ready to give up, this time the teacher patiently comforted me, even the meal can not take care of eating, hurry to find the Ministry of Culture people to move a lot of screens around a circle for me to create a quiet environment, while comforting me, while helping me repair, to eat when I bought back the meal, from noon to eleven or twelve o'clock in the evening, ten hours the teacher has been accompanying me to repair the work, In the middle of the night, dozens of characters with broken arms and legs were finally repaired, and only then did I breathe a long sigh of relief, when Teacher Duan was already old, so enthusiastic to help me, the gratitude is indescribable. The 5-day exhibition ended quickly and I was a huge success, my work won a grand prize, and a Singapore merchant collected my work for 13,000. Teacher Duan's kindness and charm make me unforgettable in this life.

Nie Yuanlong, a folklorist in Shanxi, said: "Teacher Duan is a hero of Shanxi's folk culture construction work, she is devoted to folk culture work, especially in the fieldwork work, for decades has always paid attention to the mass cultural work in Shanxi cities and counties and even villages, as well as the current situation and dynamics of mass culture and art, enthusiastically supported folk art activities, tirelessly provided help for folk art, publicized folk art achievements in various places, and excavated and sorted out colorful representative works of folk art." Attention is paid to cultivating inheritors of folk culture and art, and relevant people from many departments are involved. As an editor of local history, I was influenced and helped by Teacher Duan to successfully complete the compilation of the chapters on folk art and folk customs in "Shanxi Tongzhi" and "Shanxi Provincial Chronicle". Teacher Duan's dedication to folk culture and his inspiration and help to the younger generations of later schools can be described as a great achievement. ”

"In fact, to really systematically sort out Shanxi folk art, the main thing is to do more after retirement, and to transform a large amount of accumulation during work into some systematic content." Since his retirement, lecturing, training, and sorting out book manuscripts have become Duan Gaifang's main work. "Shanxi Folk Art Face Sculpture", "Folk Face Flower", "Shanxi Paper-cutting Grand View", "Folk Lotus Bag", "Shanxi Folk Woodblock New Year Painting Relics", "Complete Collection of Chinese Art Classification", Shanxi Volume and other books about Shanxi folk art have her painstaking efforts.

When the reporter asked her what she had gained from paying so much for Shanxi folk art over the years, she said: "Doing what she has always liked is harvesting, that is, being satisfied." ”

Shanxi Evening News reporter Li Yali

(Editor-in-charge: Ma Yunmei)