"My name is Lu Zhengyi, a young craftsman, and every praise and concern you have is a dissemination and recognition of traditional Chinese craftsmanship." Recently, wood carving craftsman Lu Zhengyi caught fire. The 72-year-old uncle from Putian, Fujian Province, began in May this year, through the B station account "Lu Zhengyi's Carving Time", uploaded a variety of ACG (animation, manga, game abbreviation) characters made of mahogany, and currently has more than 900,000 fans. "On How to Take Kakashi Out of Wood" and "Take Out of Wood Attack on Titan Level" are all popular videos.
The white-haired Lu Zhengyi claimed to be twenty-seven years old, "because the age of picking up the chisel and touching the carving was 27 years old, he made a little joke with you." In the face of the long-lasting craft of wood carving, he feels that he is still a young man, "there are still many places where I need to learn about carving."
Can carving the two-dimensional image that young people like become a way for intangible cultural heritage to enter young people and revitalize in the present?
The Young "Old Second Dimension"
Autumn is coming, "Xiao Lu" recently has some small colds, specially reminded their friends not to get cold. Netizens enthusiastically advised, "Xiao Lu pay attention to the body, don't be too tired, young people, don't use the body as capital!" He replied, "Of course, I'll have to do it for a long time." ”
This "Xiao Lu", who mingles with netizens, is actually a 72-year-old man who likes to wear an I-shaped vest and blue plastic slippers, and the shape is a bit like the "fire cloud evil god" in Zhou Xingchi's movie. The reason why I have to call such a grandfather "Xiao Lu" is because at the beginning of each video, a young man will call him this way and ask him to do it, as if calling a good brother who has played from childhood to adulthood.
The voice behind it is the photographer Ah Wei, originally, he planned to call Lu Zhengyi "Old Lu" or "Lu Lao", but thought that the video should be posted on the B station, may wish to create a little "contrast cute", so he thought of the title of "Xiao Lu". Lu Zhengyi gladly accepted, "As long as the audience accepts, I have no problem." ”
Lu Zhengyi lives in a small village in Xianyou, Putian, with rolling mountains in the distance and beautiful scenery. The atmosphere of wood carving culture here is strong, and mahogany furniture is quite famous, known as "xianzuo". There is a Straits Art Sculpture Tourist City nearby, and people who have been there are impressed, "looking up from afar, like the royal palace". The tourist city and the mahogany art carving exposition held here have made tourists who come to visit and buy mahogany furniture an endless stream. The mahogany business boom spread to this small mountain village, which has a long street lined with shops about wood products, and Lu Zhengyi's son also runs such a shop. About five or six years ago, the mahogany furniture market gradually became deserted, the traffic plummeted, and people began to complain that the store business was not doing well.
Lu Zhengyi is well-known in the wood carving industry, but when Ah Wei came to him a few months ago to do wood carving, Lu Zhengyi had not done wood carving for a long time. "The list is basically not handled by myself, and the locals will directly contact some of my apprentices to do it." In recent years, the market demand for wood carving has been much less than in the past, and the price and shape are indeed great factors. "Most of what Lu Zhengyi did before was some traditional and common carvings, including Buddha statues, Guan Gong, Dharma, zodiac animals and so on. After decades of doing this, he felt like it was just repetitive work. Moreover, when he is older, he also wants to enjoy his leisure time.
Ah Wei brought anime pictures and model handmade for Lu Zhengyi to see, and his eyes lit up at once. These exaggerated and tense new gadgets made the old craftsman see the anger that was completely different from Dharma and Qi, and he repeatedly played with them in his hands, "He is very interested in these handicrafts, I can feel it." Ah Wei said. He tentatively asked Lu Zhengyi, "Are you interested in challenging to do this with wood carving?" Let's do a few videos to see if they're popular. Lu Zhengyi agreed.
Although they had not been useful for a long time, the chisels that Lu Zhengyi had taken out were still very sharp, and Ah Wei guessed that he would often maintain these tools--the craftsmen's weapons could not rust.
On May 20, the first video of "Lu Zhengyi's Carving Time", "Carving a Punch Superman Saitama with a Mahoganyo", was launched, with more than 420,000 hits. This unique master who shook the fan and calmly "took out" the hand from the wood, with a look that was seriously inconsistent with his self-proclaimed age, suddenly poked at the cute point of the B station netizens.
"When the UP Lord is on fire later, this issue is where the dream begins," someone prophesied. Lu Zhengyi likes to read the comments of netizens, look at it, and laugh happily.
When encountering netizens in the bullet screen and comments of the "B station terrier", Lu Zhengyi will ask Ah Wei, for example, why do so many people call him "old second dimension"? "It's a bit troublesome to explain, he's not good at Mandarin, so I can only translate it into the putian dialect for him." The word did make me a little confused, and finally explained to be an old man who likes to watch anime. Lu Zhengyi nodded, perhaps with a mind.
The old man knew that he was not really the "old second dimension", and only to understand the morphological details and personality of these characters, he watched some video clips with the help of Ah Wei. Many netizens call the characters he carved in his hands "husband" and "wife", he finds it interesting, "it should be like a star-chasing idol, there is a special object of worship in his heart, and his words amplify his like." In his eyes, Station B is a good platform for sharing and learning, "from the comments and private messages, you can feel the friendliness and cuteness of users, and the discussion atmosphere in the comment area is also harmonious." ”
Ah Wei was born in 1995, and he injected a young soul into the "Little Lu" in the video. In these anime carved by Lu Zhengyi, Ah Wei has only chased "Attack on Titan", "Naruto", "One Piece", "JOJO's Wonderful Adventure", etc. are all made up for because of the high degree of discussion on the B station. "The task of chasing the fan fell on me, and I didn't know the stems until I saw them."
It is this pair of old and one young who "don't understand" the second dimension, and have become the two-dimensional gods in the minds of B station netizens. Ah Wei feels that the "Xiao Lu" in the video is not deliberately packaged, and in real life, Lu Zhengyi is an old man who loves to laugh and is easy to be shy. Packaging is limited to sometimes wearing T-shirts printed with the "second dimension" feature pattern provided by Ah Wei.
"His personality itself is very old and naughty, and I will design some dialogues according to his personality, and it will not deviate from his authenticity." Ah Wei will capture some of Lu Zhengyi's small actions, such as looking at his mobile phone and looking in the mirror, which are the real appearance of his life. Putting these clips together, there is the 27-year-old "Xiao Lu" who netizens like, play with the wood carving and are full of life.
Most of the time is spent carving a face
Lu Zhengyi's life is actually very far away from the two-dimensional hand.
On weekdays, he loves to play musical instruments with the old guys, fish, watch Puxian opera, go to the village old people's association to play cards, take the little grandson, and then go to see what the apprentices have been doing recently. "After the red, life has not changed much, that is, sometimes on the road, I encounter some young people who are handed a cigarette and call me 'old two-dimensional', which is quite embarrassing."
In this small village in Putian, craftsmen only silently inherit and repeat the traditional wood carving craft. Ah Wei brought him a picture book introducing Western art for his reference, and Lu Zhengyi knew Michelangelo for the first time. It turned out that carving also had such a way of playing, and the freshness prompted this old craftsman to pick up the chisel and have the idea of trying it.
A wood carving usually takes four or five days to carve, of which more than half of the time is spent on the face. The traditional wood carving face line is soft and rounded, the characters are plump, and the image is more specific and realistic, but when carving the empty strip Shotaro in "Jojo's Wonderful Adventure" with mahogany, Ah Wei reminds Lu Zhengyi to make the face angular, like a knife, because the character is characterized by not smiling.
The captain in "Attack on Titan" Is the most time-consuming, and at the beginning of the carving, Ah Wei took it in his hand and carefully examined it, always feeling that something was not quite right. "The details on the body are well restored, but Grandpa Lu is used to the traditional wood carving method of shaping, the face shape of the character is relatively wide, and there is no feeling of anime face." At the bottom of the first video, some people also think that the hand office is "collapsed", not like a punch superman, but like an Arhat face.
Lu Zhengyi didn't quite understand why the eyes of anime characters were so big, especially the eyes of girls, so big that they seemed to jump out, and the pupils could hold stars. This is something that traditional wood carving cannot accommodate, and it is also something that Master has not taught.
Many hand-made figures, including Revere, have their eyes drawn with brushes at the end, and the wood carvings can only carve out rough outlines, and further down, the technique has encountered a bottleneck. Lu Zhengyi tried his best to avoid the image of the big-eyed girl, but when he got the main brand of 100,000 fans up given by station B, he still did the "gun sister" Misaka Mikoto, who was quite popular among netizens.
In order to restore the eyes of the characters, Ah Wei took a pencil to accompany Lu Zhengyi to try a little, "Grandpa Lu is not unsentified, I can only introduce young people like this, I hope he tries to restore the original look, he can also understand." After Misaka's handmaidens were done, they found another UP master, "Ohto DOU", to recolor the wood carvings and add bright colors. If left unspecified, it is almost impossible to perceive that this was made by hand with wood carving.
"I have always felt that traditional wood carving tools and crafts have no restrictions on the subject matter of creation, and all kinds of images can be achieved." Ah Wei said, but in retrospect, some of the complicated techniques may have to rely on special tools to implement. Each craft has its own advantages and limitations, just like someone at Station B plays the famous two-dimensional song "Senhon Sakura" with a guzheng, but instead of the three-stringed piano played by Lu Zhengyi, it may be difficult to simulate the fast to crazy rhythm.
The "team" only has two people, Lu Zhengyi and Ah Wei, and the shooting and editing are all done by Ah Wei. There are comments complaining, and the video is gone as soon as the "refined" part is gone. Ah Wei admitted that his energy is limited, the video does only shoot the beginning and end of the carving, he usually has to work, so most of them choose to record on weekends, which takes more than half a day.
Lu Zhengyi often pondered the work alone, silently revising and polishing the details. "Traditional carving and anime handicrafts have in common in their carving techniques. I think the biggest difference between the two is that the tradition pays more attention to 'intention', and the anime hand is more in the 'shape', and the tension is relatively large. Lu Zhengyi felt that he could become popular at Station B because of Ah Wei's assistance, and because the wood carving craft was indeed attractive to young people.
Holding the silver medal of the 100,000-fan UP Lord, Lu Zhengyi smiled like a child, "I like this platform." Receiving this brand means that 100,000 people love the art of wood carving, which motivates me to continue to do it. As long as the physical condition allows, I will continue to do it. ”
"I want everyone to truly feel the beauty of traditional handicrafts"
The reporter contacted Lu Zhengyi through the Shanghai Qunyi Museum, but he was not in the list of non-hereditary inheritors in the country that the Qunyi Museum held.
Lu Zhengyi has never evaluated the master of arts and crafts, and he does not know whether the skills he has inherited can be called "intangible heritage". The reporter inquired into the "Putian Intangible Cultural Heritage List" and found that there are many intangible cultural heritage skills in furniture making and wood carving. Ah Wei believes that Lu Zhengyi's skills are similar to the "Xianyou Yangtang wood carving handicrafts".
Ah Wei do film and television shooting and post-production work, he has seen people on the short video platform to do wood carving hand-made videos, most of the authors between the ages of 20 and 40, in order to pursue video traffic, they use entertainment, kitsch to attract attention, the traditional handicraft to a very low position, such a video let him like a fish in the throat. "I think this kind of atmosphere is not good, and it will make young people less and less like traditional crafts." I want to shoot better than them and let everyone really feel the beauty of traditional craftsmanship. ”
Ah Wei wanted to spread traditional craftsmanship, Lu Zhengyi wanted to pass on his craft, the two hit it off, with the sentence at the end of the video - "Every like and concern you like and pay attention to is the dissemination and recognition of traditional Chinese craftsmanship." ”
"Now young people don't learn to understand this line, even if they are really interested, it will take a long time to enter the industry, as little as seven or eight years, which makes many people discouraged." Lu Zhengyi introduced that since most of the traditional carvings can now be completed by machines, a large number of people choose to change careers. Only those "masters" whose skills are hard enough to be replaced by machines can stick to them, but the orders are also unstable.
"The overall state of wood carving craftsmanship is not very optimistic." Speaking of the future of craftsmanship, Lu Zhengyi is inevitably sentimental, although many B station netizens want to learn, but wood carving is more suitable for face-to-face oral teaching, he has not yet seen self-taught people. "Learning wood carving requires a slow soul, sinking down, delicate enough."
Let the intangible cultural heritage into the young people, creating the image that young people like may be a way. However, these wood carvings are not well valued, and due to copyright problems, they cannot be sold at this stage. If there is a copyright company cooperation, can it be a better way to pass on the craftsmanship and authorize the production of genuine wood carvings for these craftsmen?
Ah Wei also has a worry: even if the "mass production" problem is solved, are there really so many people who like wooden handmade? "Pure hand carving plus mahogany material, will make them more expensive than the general handmade, and wooden handmade is not resistant to falling, not easy to maintain, easy to deteriorate, mildew, etc., once broken, but also have to be repaired manually."
Thinking about it, Ah Wei felt that the current video dissemination may be a better way to protect and pass on this craft. "Maybe more young people will like wood carving after watching the video, or even go to art schools to learn carving."
Some netizens commented that they wanted to see what Lu Zhengyi looked like in his life, and Ah Wei specially made a video to shoot Lu Zhengyi's daily life.
In the video, the old man drinks soy milk, pulls the sweet potato leaves, and plays the trio with the old man. Only the picture of playing cards is colored—that was Lu Zhengyi's favorite pastime before. In the barrage, some people brushed the "back wave", and some people watched with tears, "I hope that I will be so young in the future."
Lu Zhengyi rarely uses mobile phones, and the most frequently used is to watch Puxian drama on short video software. It wasn't until May this year, with the help of Ah Wei, that he became a "UP master" that he knew about Station B. "I don't think of up as a profession, but I like the status of up master."
Ah Wei intends to continue to create with Lu Zhengyi. At present, the account has 950,000 fans, next month is expected to usher in 1 million, according to the custom, B station will award a small gold medal, "then Grandpa Lu can wipe two brands a day." ”
The liking of hundreds of thousands of people is Lu Zhengyi's greatest satisfaction, and it is also the driving force for his inheritance and innovation of craftsmanship. He looks forward to one day developing the technique of carving eyes, attracting more people to like and pay attention to traditional handicrafts.
Lu Zhengyi's neighbors are also mostly elderly, and if it were not for the occasional media interview, they would not have known that the craftsmen next door had so many fans on the Internet.
In China's remote countryside, there are many such traditional craftsmen. They have great skill, and may become treasure UP masters, if more young people can lead them out.
Source: Author: Zhong Han