Driving along the wide road, the rows of buildings quickly retreat, just like this rapidly changing era, the antique buildings that jump out from time to time tell the charm of Xianyou, a small city that is full of tradition and modernity...
In the early 1990s, the xianyou wood carving industry rose, just when the young Wu Yongqiang entered the wood carving industry, from apprentices to big workers, to create his own brand, he witnessed the industry's blossoms - a few streets of wood carving workshops, tens of thousands of wood carving practitioners, but also experienced the lack of follow-up talent training today, as a witness and participant in this industry, wu Yongqiang, a master of craftsmanship and art, has too many expectations and reluctance for wood carving.
Wu Yongqiang
Master of Arts and Crafts of Fujian Province
Founder of Xianyou County Qimu Treasure Crafts Co., Ltd
First, serious creators
Wu Yongqiang's face is as angular as a knife, when he does not smile, he looks quite serious, very much in line with people's impression that traditional craftsmen must be meticulous, when we enter the door, he is sweeping the ground, clean and bright space, showing the glass cabinet of wood carving reflects his focused look, let me can't help but think of an interview with him on the TV station I watched before, in the video, Wu Yongqiang is carving a piece of yellow rosewood wood with a thick bowl, he has no distraction to remove the knife, as if there is only him and the carving knife in his hand between heaven and earth...
Wu Yongqiang's work Imitation tree knot scar Reishi pattern roll
Material: Vietnamese yellow pear
"No one in our family did wood carving, and when I graduated from high school in 1992, it just so happened that Xianyou was popular to make Taiwanese Buddha statues, so I went to learn this craft." When it comes to the opportunity to enter the industry, Wu Yongqiang's answer is simple and unpretentious. However, during the chat, we soon discovered the inevitable fate that seemed to be inseparable between him and the wood carving. He used "fun" and "interesting" several times to describe wood carving, "At that time, I didn't know anything, I just finished reading the book, I felt fresh to see everything, and I felt amazing when I saw a smart little person and small animal being carved out by craftsmen, so I went to learn." In the first year, I could only help people repair fine embryos, and it was three or five years after I started carving, and I really thought it was very interesting at that time. Talking about the process of learning wood carving, Wu Yongqiang's tone is much more relaxed, through the smile in his eyes, we seem to follow him back to that youthful and ignorant age, and see the satisfaction and happiness when he picked up the carving knife.
In the early 1990s, the Xianyou wood carving market was mainly to supply Buddha statues to Taiwan, and Wu Yongqiang, who had just started, also began to polish his skills from religious themes such as Buddha statues, and unlike many wood carving craftsmen at that time, he began to contact huanghuali wood materials in 1995, and by around 1998, he could independently complete huanghuali wood carving works, which laid the groundwork for him to compete for fame in the field of huanghuali wood carving.
Wu Yongqiang's works Ren Zhishou
Material: Hainan huanghuali
"At that time, the value of the yellow pear was not excavated, the price was very cheap, and the factory would buy the base for the wood carving. I remember that I was in the factory at that time to buy a very large huanghuali tree head material, on which dug 18 holes, used to place the sandalwood carved eighteen arhats, at that time sandalwood was much more expensive than huanghuali, sandalwood one kilogram more than two hundred, and huanghuali a kilogram is only two or three yuan, put to the present, this tree head material conservative also sells hundreds of thousands of dollars..." When Wu Yongqiang talked about this piece of wood, the regret was overflowing, not only because of the "Luoyang paper expensive" of huanghuali today, but more because of the tyranny of heavenly things. Later, Wu Yongqiang named the brand he founded "Strange Wood Treasure", which also warned himself to cherish every hard-won piece of wood and make the best use of it.
Unconsciously, Wu Yongqiang has been doing wood carving for more than thirty years, and his superb skills have achieved his reputation in Huanghuali wood carving. Today, Wu Yongqiang's "Strange Wood Treasure" is one of the most resounding names in the field of Huanghuali wood carving. However, when it comes to the change of creative type, Wu Yongqiang's tone shows a little helplessness. "I have long focused on huanghuali carving, but now the price of huanghuali is too expensive, coupled with many people's pursuit of the texture and color of huanghuali material, so the vegetarian without carving is more popular in the market, but this kind of vegetarian is more reflective of the material value than the process value."
Yellow rosewood in the exhibition hall of the Qimu Treasure
In the face of changes in market demand, Wu Yongqiang did not choose to blindly cater to, but continued to improve on root carving and ingenious carving, so that the market can see the value of carvings. "The use of design and carving techniques to dissolve the natural defects on the wood, the impossible to open the yellow pear into a unique work of art", at the same time, Wu Yongqiang also began to expand to sandalwood, agarwood and small-leaf rosewood in the material, constantly enriching the creative carrier and excavating the charm of wood carving skills.
In terms of carving themes, Wu Yongqiang prefers the traditional themes of the human category, but the carving techniques are integrated into the artistic language of modern sculpture, which makes his wood carving works have a very distinct personal style. "Following the stereotypes and frameworks of traditional wood carving, while drawing on the structure of modern sculpture and the rigor of human anatomy, so that the overall style of the work presents artistic characteristics that are more in line with modern aesthetics, is the direction I will deepen my next step."
Wu Yongqiang's work Baizitu round box (overall)
Wu Yongqiang's work Baizitu round box (partial)
Wu Yongqiang, who was born in 1974, bluntly said that today's age has passed the stage of fighting skills, but his desire for artistic creation has gradually made him better on the road of seeking innovation and change. Today, he has turned around from the exquisite carving of the pen and flowers and birds, and walked towards the big freehand, the more and more old and spicy blades, like the wine stored in the cellar, the fire is completely empty, and the fragrance is overflowing. As shown in the aforementioned TV interview clip, in just half an hour, he made a face of Guan Gong on a piece of thick yellow rosewood wood, which amazed the people present.
When the way of skill or age restrictions are exhausted, and the way of art is endless, looking at the ten thousand mountains, still the original intention does not change, Wu Yongqiang's persistence, but also the persistence of many craftsmen, and their adherence is the hope of traditional Chinese arts and crafts.
2. Wood carving and collection
"In the future, the collection value of wood carving crafts will definitely be greater than that of furniture, why?" First, the scarcity of materials, and more importantly, there are too few masters who can do wood carving now. "Craftsmen, often do not care about the market, But Wu Yongqiang has a rare forward-looking vision, as early as ten years ago, he began to think about the collection potential of wood carving, today, it seems that his previous judgments are confirmed one by one."
"Ten years ago, I told many customers to let them select some good craftsmen's works from all over the country to collect under the conditions of ability permitting, and each person collected three or five pieces, and no one did these things in the future, and there must be room for appreciation." Why so sure? Because only from the perspective of Xianyou wood carving, the number of people learning this craft has been decreasing, which is basically the status quo of the entire industry. Talking about the withering of talents, Wu Yongqiang's tone gradually became low. Looking at the once incomparably prosperous Xianyou wood carving industry, a few streets of shops, tens of thousands of practitioners, just over ten years of time, it turned into a sigh in the long river of time - there are few young people willing to engage in wood carving, even if there is, from one end to the end, there is no one.
At the end of the twentieth century, with the development of the domestic economy and the improvement of consumption power, Xianyou wood carving handicrafts gradually opened the national market, for a time, Xianyou as the hometown of wood carving crafts fame mapped, people rushed here to buy, customize all kinds of wood carving works. Around 2006, xianyou wood carving industry ushered in the peak of development, after which, classical furniture began to exert force, gradually overshadowed the light of wood carving. When it comes to the relationship between wood carving and furniture, in Wu Yongqiang's view, they are both "opponents" and "partners". "Wood carving has certain limitations compared with furniture, it is not a must for every family, and those who buy it must know how to appreciate it." But people who like classical furniture often also like wood carving, because they come from the same cultural roots and have the same artistic language. ”
Wu Yongqiang's works Shochiku plum viewing pot (overall)
Wu Yongqiang's works Shochiku plum viewing pot (partial)
Nowadays, the youngest of the local masters who can do "clear knife" carving in Xianyou is already in their thirties, and most of them are nearly forty years old, which is almost the tail of the golden age of wood carving. "I can't do the fine carving now, the eyes can see it, and it is obvious that it is difficult to take the knife and do it." Wu Yongqiang sighed a little. Unlike artistic creations such as painting, the art of wood carving has an almost cruel requirement for age, and although Wu Yongqiang has continued to cut through the practice by changing his style, the number of his works has also decreased significantly in recent years.
"The lack of talent I saw in your last article (Chen Zhikuang: The Great World in Wood Carving) also mentioned that this is actually a common problem faced by traditional handicrafts, not only Xianyou, but also in other regions, such as Dongyang and Jiangxi, where there were many masters who used to do wood carving, and now there are very few left. Young people prefer to make money through computers and mobile phones, learning the craft is real, very hard, and can not make a lot of money. "The rapid development of the modern economy, the new business model, so that learning crafts has become a cold door in employment, the popularity of machine processing, the disappearance of craftsmen, is putting the wood carving industry in a changing situation, but it is certain that under the change, the increasingly scarce wood carving works in the collection market will shine with unprecedented brilliance."
Third, the values of Huanghuali
Since the marketization, Wu Yongqiang has watched the material of huanghuali rise from two or three dollars a kilogram to a large material of millions of yuan today, and he has a deep feeling. "The first time I bought huanghuali was in 1996, when there was a person in Bangtou Town who stored a room of wood in an adobe house, and I went to choose 5 pieces, and I remember very well, four pieces and five one kilograms." These pieces of wood suitable for carving, Wu Yongqiang stayed until 2006, when the price of the same level of huanghuali wood has risen to five or six hundred yuan a kilogram, and the price of one kilogram of huanghuali logs that can make furniture is straight to two thousand yuan.
The Qimu Treasure Exhibition Hall
In 2003, Wu Yongqiang, who had learned to become a craftsman, set up his own portal and began to buy raw materials for Huanghuali. Wood carving is different from furniture in that it has a unique standard — it pays more attention to oiliness rather than size, and "to select old materials that have been cut down and naturally dried after twenty or thirty years." Compared with the "old material" is not slow to precipitate, "fast-growing forest" is the product of commercial interests and deformed market demand, through manual intervention, accelerate the growth of yellow pear trees, light material, light color, large texture, almost no aroma, such wood in Wu Yongqiang's view is useless. "Where is the development of this industry until now, where are the leaks to be picked up? If you want to buy yellow pear at the price of red rosewood, you will inevitably buy this kind of (fast-growing forest). ”
The scarcity of raw materials and the annual increase in prices have also spawned the prosperity of the timber trading market, "Last year, the transaction volume of local Huanghuali materials in Xianyou was estimated to be about 1 billion, and the market was very hot, but most people bought not to make furniture or wood carving crafts, but as an investment, especially some big entrepreneurs, they collected Huanghuali as an asset match, just like buying Moutai wine and gold bars." "When these yellow pear wood materials enter the capital field, they are destined to no longer circulate in the market for a short period of time, which in turn aggravates the growth rate of the price of yellow pears." It is understood that the price of raw materials of huanghuali was relatively stable in previous years, but it has almost doubled so far last year. The increasing price and increasing scarcity of raw materials also confirm the collection potential of Huanghuali wood carving works.
With the increase of age, Wu Yongqiang began to spend more time thinking about the development of the entire wood carving industry, and began to try cross-regional cooperation, "I will now invite them to co-create according to the carving style and good subject matter of the masters in different regions, and I will complete the design, they realize the carving, for example, the bamboo carving pen holder in Anhui is very famous, then I will consider whether I can express the bamboo carving theme on the Huanghuali pen holder, which may be one of the new development directions of the wood carving industry in the future." ”
Odd Wood Treasure Exhibits
Adhering to tradition and changing with the trend, these two slightly contradictory qualities run through Wu Yongqiang's creative career of more than 30 years, this thoughtful master of craftsmanship and art, with a strong personality and far-reaching vision to portray his own wood carving square circle, let people see that others do not want to walk on the rugged road still has a persistent forward figure.
Author: Rain Wood
EDIT: Kaishan
Photograph: Lin Jinli