Humanity / Nature / Life
Yinchuan Evening Newspaper Official Fang Wenhua WeChat Pingtai | No. 1042
Su Hongzhang directed the production of the lamp group "Fu Hu YingChun".
Lund Flower Lantern is a business card of Longde County, Guyuan City. Su Hongzhang, as the non-hereditary inheritor of Lund's lantern making skills, uses a stick to let the lanterns in his hometown be known to more people. During this time, Su Hongzhang has been busy making flower lanterns, and when it comes to the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, the flower lanterns they make will be exhibited in Longde County to "illuminate" the New Year in their hometown.
Blessings in Lund's lanterns
Su Hongzhang's memory of the flower lantern began at the age of five or six, and he was deeply impressed. "Although the conditions at home were difficult at that time, during the New Year, the social fire must be played, and the lantern performance must also be held." It's like a ritual, without the taste of the year. Su Hongzhang said that every year during the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, children in the village run out of their homes to play, and each person carries a flower lantern in his hand. When a bunch of children stand together, it is better to see who has the best lantern and whose lantern is the most unique. And Su Hongzhang's flower lanterns can always come out on top, because his grandfather is a well-known folk artist in flower lantern making. Grandpa's skills brought joy and pride to his year.
Su Hongzhang, who makes flower lanterns.
He still remembers the lanterns he used to play with. At that time, it was said that it was a flower lamp, but in fact, most of them were made of white paper, because they could not afford to buy colored paper. "White paper costs a few cents, and a piece of colored paper costs 1 cent, which is too expensive, so I made an airplane out of white paper." Su Hongzhang said that one of his own airplane lanterns used paste, bamboo pieces, and white paper. First make the skeleton, then cut out the pattern, then glue it, and then install beeswax on the inside, and a flower lamp will be ready. He also painted black on the tail of the plane, which was an extra color.
"In the past, the conditions were so difficult, unlike now for the New Year, the dolls want to eat and play, and they all have it at home." At that time, we took the flower lanterns, even if it was the New Year, we were very happy to play one by one. Su Hongzhang said that a small flower lantern is not as exquisite as it is now, but it is full of the love and blessings of the elders.
Five generations of love
Lund Lantern has a long history and is an important genre of Chinese lantern art in the northwest region. Su Hongzhang, 52, said that their Su family lanterns have been passed down for five generations.
"The first generation of Su Xiaoquan and Su Jiquan were the founders, and after doing heavy farm work in the hard days, they still loved traditional folk skills such as lanterns, drama costumes, head hats, and horse fires, and often innovated production with the help of farm themes, and this spirit is worth inheriting from generation to generation." Su Hongzhang said that what he values most is the mentality of the older generation of craftsmen who "make fun in pain".
Su Hongzhang learned the art of making lanterns, which was influenced by his uncle Su Weitong. Su Weitong is the representative inheritor of the autonomous region-level intangible cultural heritage project "Shehuo Face", he is good at calligraphy and painting, knowledgeable, under the influence of the family, at the age of seven or eight, his pocket is often loaded with a "fire pen" made of willow branches, where to paint, step by step to the road of calligraphy and painting art. "In him, I saw love, I saw persistence, and I saw a responsibility for folk art."
Exquisite under the complicated program
The reason why the flower lantern is beautiful is because it adds a colorful light to ordinary life, but this beautiful birth is also very complicated.
Su Hongzhang said that the main types of lantern making work are artists, carpenters, fitters, electricians, painters, and mounting workers. First of all, the artist is required to design the renderings, and after coming to the scene, it is necessary to "loft", that is, the artist draws the "front view" and "side view" on the ground according to the size of the light group effect drawing and according to the one-to-one ratio. The key parts should be marked with specific processes, so that the person who takes the sample can clearly understand the structure of the light group; then the fitter appears, that is, the stylist. If the skeleton of the lantern is wood, it will require carpentry, but the skeleton is generally made of angle iron and wire welded. The fitter should cut off each steel bar according to the sampling pattern, bend it into a different shape, make the parts first, and then weld these parts one by one according to the pattern, and the "skeleton" of the lantern will be formed.
Lund flower lanterns.
Once the skeleton is ready, it's time for the electrician to play. Electricians need to install light bulbs inside the skeleton, and some light groups also need to be lit on the outside of the model. The traces must follow the skeleton, otherwise the lines will be displayed after the lights are on. The most important thing is to pay attention to safety, can not leak electricity, to ensure that rain and snow days are foolproof; after the lighting is done, the artist will carry out "chromatic", that is, which piece of colored silk to be framed, all need to be marked out; and finally the mounting paste worker with colored silk paste, mounting paste, and then the artist then color according to the renderings, the animal or character "makeup" treatment, the entire flower lantern is considered to be completed, wait until after installation, you can show.
Legacy is a responsibility
Su Hongzhang couldn't remember how many flower lanterns he had made. For a long time, under the guidance of folk lantern artists Zhang Baixiao, Zhang Guoqin and others, he has mastered the key points of the process of design, material selection, keel binding, mounting paste and color matching. At the same time, on the basis of inheriting the traditional production process, we boldly innovated, absorbed the characteristics and essence of the flower lantern art from all over the world, and produced various large-scale works such as "Minning Family" and "Nine Dragon Wall". Today, Su Hongzhang is the director of the production plant and artistic director of Longde Zhengguan Flower Lantern Co., Ltd., and has also brought out many apprentices.
Recently, the list of inheritors of the sixth batch of intangible cultural heritage projects in Ningxia was announced, and Su Hongzhang was listed among them. It was an honor, he said, but more importantly a responsibility. "Lund flower lanterns have developed to this day, and the production process is far from being comparable to that year. Rich materials, mature production skills, so that Lund's flower lantern production, more and more good. He said that whether it is a simple and simple flower lantern in the past or a beautiful and colorful flower lantern now, the meaning represented is actually the same, that is, it expresses people's expectations for the year and hope for the future. And Su Hongzhang's expectation is to make this flower lantern full of people's hopes always light up, brighter to a farther distance.
Text | Liu Xuzhuo
Images in this edition are provided by the interviewee
Editor| Seventh Floor Qi Yu
The head of the duty | Li Zhenwen
Produced by Yinchuan News Media Group [Yidu Culture].
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