"On the eve of the New Year's Eve of the fire tree and silver flowers, the colorful lights shine brightly." The annual Lantern Festival is one of the most beautiful scenery in Tong Tong City. At nightfall yesterday, 30 battery sightseeing cars "Xiaobai" hung up a beautiful lantern and shuttled through the ancient city of Quanzhou, attracting many tourists to stop and take pictures. Among them, the traditional flower lanterns on the 10 "mobile flower lanterns" are from the hands of Fu Caoyi, a craftsman in Nan'an.
From the age of 17 to the present, Fu Caoyi has been sticking to the road of "Shouyi" in flower lanterns for more than 20 years, and he has lit up time with a pair of skillful hands and also lit up the inheritance. Recently, the reporter approached Fu Caoyi to understand the story of the "Shouyi" of this non-hereditary inheritor.
Learn to keep the art
Late at night, the Hanyue Flower Lantern Studio in Fengze District, Quanzhou City, is still brightly lit, and Fu Caoyi is rushing to make flower lanterns. Every year, the Lantern Festival is approaching, which is the busiest day for Quanzhou lantern artists.
Walking into Fu Caoyi's studio, I saw all kinds of handmade flower lanterns decorated in between, including paper-engraved paper-free filament lamps with cumbersome craftsmanship, as well as needle-piercing boneless flower lamps and colored lanterns. One of the flower lamps is beautifully styled, and the hollow lines are more prominent against the background of warm yellow lights.
"This flower lamp is a representative work of Quanzhou flower lamp, the process is extremely exquisite, blending boneless, engraved paper, material silk, asphalt powder thread, gold platinum and other skills, it takes more than half a month to complete such a fine flower lamp." Fu Caoyi said.
Every year, before the Spring Festival and the Lantern Festival, it is the busiest time in the studio. "It has been busy since several months ago, and it is necessary to make flower lanterns before the festival so that the public can appreciate the beauty of traditional culture." When Fu Caoyi introduced himself to reporters, his eyes never left the flower lantern in his hand.
Fu Caoyi was born in Xishan Village, Xiamei Town, and is the representative inheritor of the "Quanzhou Flower Lantern" national intangible cultural heritage project. At the age of 17, he learned the art of making lanterns from Guo Guofu, a prop designer of the Provincial Pear Garden Theater Troupe. "At that time, I worked at an advertising agency during the day and volunteered to help make lanterns at night, and I was not a real craftsman." As the saying goes, "learning art is easy to keep art is difficult", 3 years later, Fu Caoyi turned to trade marketing industry.
The turning point took place in 2005. This year, Guo Guofu died of illness. The death of the master rekindled Fu Caoyi's determination to inherit his legacy. In October of the following year, a door-to-door order also created an opportunity for him to enter the flower lamp industry.
"A Taiwanese merchant wanted to order flower lanterns, so he asked a friend of mine, and through his friend's 'matchmaking', I took an order for 100 flower lanterns." Fu Caoyi told reporters that the merchant has now become a stable customer, and every year he orders a batch of flower lanterns from the studio.
In 2006, Fu Caoyi established Hanyue Flower Lantern Studio and has since embarked on the road of shouyi. His talent and dedication made him quickly emerge in the lantern industry, and his works can be seen in the Quanzhou Lantern Festival and many light shows in Fuzhou, Taiwan and Malaysia, and his works have repeatedly won the Quanzhou Lantern Festival Award.
Keeping the promise of change
Lantern Lantern is a very festive handicraft, in order to break this festive shackles, Fu Caoyi tried a variety of methods.
During the New Year's Festival and the large number of orders, Fu Caoyi urged himself and the workers to rush to work and make large hanging lamps and traditional lamp groups; when the orders were small, he would study in retreat, thinking about how traditional crafts combined with the concepts of "life aesthetics" and "DIY experience" that modern people are keen to find a way to survive for the traditional lantern making process.
"I want to integrate the content of intangible cultural heritage into life through my own innovation, so that flower lanterns can not only appear in the Lantern Festival, but also appear in all aspects of life, becoming daily necessities and decorations." Fu Caoyi said with a smile.
As it turns out, he did what he said. The reporter noted that in Fu Caoyi's studio, there are both traditional flower lanterns, as well as Zen lotus lamps, needle punching table lamps, and DIY small flower lamps. "These are the life series and cultural tourism series lanterns that I have developed since 2012." Fu Caoyi told reporters that these two series were quite popular after development.
In 2012, the DIY flower lantern developed by Fu Caoyi was popular in the streets and alleys of Quanzhou, becoming the most favored handicraft product for adults and children at the Lantern Festival, and also allowing more people to contact and understand Quanzhou flower lanterns.
In addition, according to the requirements of customers, Fu Caoyi has also developed a variety of different flower lanterns. For example, combined with the shape of the Wild Goose Pagoda in Wudian City, the "Golden List Inscription Lamp" was developed by using the needle punching process; the party emblem party building elements were added to the flower lamp...
"Now, I have been trying to go out and exchange and learn in xi'an ancient city and other places, hoping that the traditional culture of lanterns can take root and blossom on a higher platform and on more fertile soil." Fu Caoyi said that he also plans to open a solo exhibition to let more people see the protection and innovation of intangible cultural heritage.
Nowadays, in his spare time, Fu Caoyi will also enter the community and school to teach everyone to make flower lanterns, although it is some simple practices, but he feels that this is a kind of inheritance.
THE END
Reporter: Lai Xiangzhu Li xiang