An ordinary pair of small scissors clicked on the folded red paper, and after a few minutes of flowing water, a square paper cut came out. The tiger's head on the four sides is exquisite, and the spring characters in the four corners are clustered, and Yang Yi named it "Four Seasons Like Spring".
Yang Yi is the representative inheritor of Chongqing's intangible cultural heritage paper-cutting project, on the eve of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger in 2022, she created dozens of paper-cut works with the theme of "Tiger", sending a message to the New Year, greeting the arrival of the Year of the Tiger, and conveying a strong traditional New Year flavor.
Among them, Yang Yi's favorite group of works is named "Yin Hu". In the paper-cut pattern, there is a swallow on the tiger's head, "'Tiger' passes the word 'Fu', and the swallow is called spring mud, which means that spring returns to the earth and blessed The Divine State." Yang Yi said.
It lasted half a year
Create dozens of "tiger" paper cuts
Paper-cut works to be delivered, paper-cut performance invitations at Spring Festival celebrations, invitations to display works... On the eve of the Spring Festival, Yang Yi was as busy as in previous years.
On the morning of January 26, upstream journalists met Yang Yi in the intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall on the first floor of the Jiulongpo District Cultural Center in Chongqing, where her studio has been open for eight years and displays most of her paper-cut works.
A table of rice paper unfolded, more than ten "tiger" theme paper-cut works spread on it, large, small, round, red, white, black, green, delicate, aesthetic, festive paper-cut works, "YinChun", "Tiger Tiger Vitality", "Tiger Year Auspicious", "Eight Directions into Wealth", "Fortune into Treasure", "Four Seasons like Spring" as promised.
"Tiger cutting started last year when I went to the Chongqing Tourism Vocational College in Qianjiang for class, and the students asked me to cut the tiger for him. Because I rarely cut tigers, I thought it was not good at that time, and then I created it as soon as I had time. Yang Yi said that on the train to Qianjiang, he would always carry a small pair of scissors with him, create local materials, and create dozens of paintings when he came and went, which took about half a year.
Among them, Yang Yi's most satisfactory is "Yin Hu". "The paper-cut works are more freehand, and the main elements of this work are tigers and spring swallows, 'tiger' through the word 'fu', swallow spring mud, meaning spring back to the earth full of gods." Yang Yi said that the creation of this work is also a sudden whim, and spring can always bring people's imagination of a better life.
"All the paper cuts related to the tiger have no original manuscript, and they are all original by their own feel and inspiration, which seems to be non-like, but they are all good wishes for the Spring Festival." Yang Yi said that some of these paper-cut works were framed for sale, some of which she collected herself, and some of which were invited to be exhibited at the China Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing.
Loved since childhood
Paper-cutting becomes a cause that integrates into life
Speaking of paper-cutting, Yang Yi, 54 years old this year, is still full of enthusiasm.
"Since I was a child, I liked to follow my grandmother with scissors to cut window flowers, and then I liked cut painting, and then I studied Chinese painting in high school, and I began to cut people's shadows and absorb art knowledge." Yang Yi recalled that since 2005, in a paper-cutting design invitation, she found a way to open a new market for paper-cutting: combining tradition and modernity, integrating cutting and carving, and adding the "clip-and-paste" form that was very popular in the 1980s and 1990s, that is, creatively piecing together the shredded paper scraps that fell from the paper-cutting paper and combining them into vivid pictures.
In April 2011, Jiulongpo paper-cutting art was included in the third batch of municipal intangible cultural heritage list. As a non-hereditary inheritor, Yang Yi absorbs various elements such as painting expression techniques and poetic conception in traditional folk paper-cutting window flowers, making the traditional paper-cutting handicraft unique charm.
"Over the past decade, I have also found my own style, and my works must be both modern and innovative, and they must also integrate traditional elements. She has also taken her own paper-cutting to the world and has been to many countries, such as Mexico, Malaysia, Germany, France, Spain..." Yang Yi said, paper-cutting has become a career integrated into her life, and the scissors in her hand have not stopped.
"Scissors should follow the heart, you can first draw the tiger's head you want to cut, and then cut it..." In Yang Yi Studio, her 6-year-old granddaughter can also cut out a decent "tiger head" under her ear and eyes and words and deeds.
In Yang Yi's view, from a paper window flower to a beautiful work of art, the folk art of paper-cutting has also ushered in a new spring tide.
Upstream journalist Wang Qian, Li Jing, video editor Tao Lin
Editor: Zhu Yangxia