In Lingchuan, when you mention the flower lanterns, you have to mention Xiaohui Village.
■ "Xiaohui Village has been making flower lanterns for many years, and the production of flower lanterns pays attention to inheritance." Li Xibao has been engaged in the production of lanterns for more than 20 years, is a master of arts and crafts in Jincheng City, a flower lantern maker, "My family's traditional flower lanterns can be traced back to the end of the Qing Dynasty, my grandfather Li Shenghui was a small and famous lantern maker at that time, and it was the fourth generation that passed down to me." ”
Influenced by his father's lantern making, Li Xibao has been familiar with the production of lanterns since childhood, especially after being laid off from the local plumbing factory in 1998, he immersed himself in the production of lanterns.
■ "When I first started learning to make flower lanterns, I often used my hands to fiddle with the basic materials of bamboo, reeds, and sorghum stalks. Make a small flower lamp, and your hands are often scarred. Rubbing the thick cocoons on his hands, Li Xibao said that a purely handmade flower lamp has to go through four processes: twisting paper rope, weaving lamp holders, making lampshades, and embellishments, and it takes several days to accumulate a flower lamp.
In Li Xibao's view, the lampstand is the soul of a flower lamp. In order to create the most flexible shape, before making each flower lamp, Li Xibao must first draw a sketch, and then according to the sketch, bend the reed, bamboo or sorghum stalks, accurately measure the distance with a ruler, tie and fix the materials of different sizes and shapes, and form the skeleton of the flower lamp.
■ "The connection part of the ancient flower lamp at the skeleton is generally twisted into paper rope with white linen paper for binding and fixing, and later in order to make the flower lamp more strong, it is fixed with a tie wire." Picking up a skeleton of a flower lantern being made, Li Xibao explained the changes in the inheritance.
The change is not only that the skeleton of the lantern has changed from reeds, bamboo poles, and sorghum stalks to iron and steel wire, but also the candles and oil lamps used to illuminate in the past have also been replaced by various colored lamps, and the paper or cloth used for pasty flower lamps is now mostly silk, embroidery, and imitation sheepskin.
■ "After the lampstand is prepared, through pasting and decoration, a flower lamp is made." Every design and every detail of the lantern, Li Xibao is familiar with the heart, and now the improved lantern is gradually developing towards large-scale, complex and automated, bringing people more brilliant visually, more beautiful, and more suitable for going out of the Taihang Mountains.
Flower lantern production is easy to learn and difficult to master. In order to better inherit the traditional production technique of flower lanterns, in 2018, Li Xibao established Lingchuan Century Edge Crafts Co., Ltd. to use the idle site of the village collective to develop the traditional flower lantern industry. Last year, Li Xibao also recruited two apprentices to pass on the flower lantern skills.
■ "Flower lanterns are a display of beautiful forms and ingenious structures, and the production of flower lanterns should not only have a sense of design, but also have patience and sink into the heart." Apprentice Li Xuefang now has a lot of experience and can already independently make flower lanterns.
Nowadays, on the one hand, Li Xibao has created various forms of flower lanterns according to the customized needs of different customers such as tourist attractions, religious temples, historical ancient villages, and characteristic farmhouses; on the other hand, on the basis of traditional flower lanterns, he has organized the surrounding surplus labor force to vigorously produce handicrafts such as Chinese knots, palace lamps, and hanging ornaments.
■ "You see, this is the 'Splendid Aircraft Carrier' flower lantern specially designed to greet the victory of the 20th National Congress of the Party, which means that the great motherland rides the wind and waves and prospers." Looking at a brilliant lantern, Li Xibao said excitedly, "The lantern carries people's blessings for a better life, last year the lantern sales of more than 20,000, more than 100,000 pieces of Chinese knots, sales of nearly 600,000 yuan, products are exported to Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other places, driving more than 10 surplus laborers around the average monthly income of more than 1,500 yuan." ”
(Zheng Lu, Wu Yanfei)
Source| Shanxi Daily