43-year-old man
But I often go to the nail salon to "get my nails" done
Just to keep the nails sharp and smooth
……
What's going on?
Originally
He is an "embroiderer"
He is also the inheritor of intangible cultural heritage items!
Outlined by stitch and thread
The bronzes are rusty
A variety of stitches
Embroider the tiger and the tiger
These are both like photographic pictures,
It's like an oil painting
It is a national intangible cultural heritage project - Guangxiu
And the craftsmen who embroider these pieces
It's not a traditional embroiderer
It's a boy - Wang Xinyuan
No fear of prejudice
He picked up the needle and thread and continued to love it
Wang Xinyuan, 43 years old this year, is already an embroidery master, more than 30 years of embroidery experience, let him grow into the Guangzhou embroidery representative inheritor, Guangdong Province arts and crafts master. However, as a man who likes embroidery, Wang Xinyuan has suffered a lot of doubts and ridicule. And with this insistence on love, he has come all the way to today.
In order to split a piece of mulberry silk into the thickness required for the work, Wang Xinyuan's nails had to be sharp and smooth. Therefore, he often has to go to the nail salon for special care, which always causes misunderstandings among the people around him. "It definitely takes a lot of courage to get a manicure, because it's a boy, and the guy who just came in (the nail salon) was sitting there laughing at me......" and the manicure is to make the nails harder and less likely to break.
Wang Xinyuan was born in a family of tailors in the countryside of Jiangxi, and has formed an indissoluble bond with needlework since childhood. At the age of 13, Wang Xinyuan fell in love with embroidery. However, this hobby often caused him to suffer from strange eyes.
In the face of prejudice, Wang Xinyuan was not convinced, in order to prove that the hand holding the embroidery needle could also carry the gun to defend the country, after graduating from high school, he chose to join the army.
After retiring, Wang Xinyuan came to work in Guangzhou, and came into contact with Guangxiu by chance, and the embroidery dream buried in his heart was awakened again.
In the following three years, Wang Xinyuan hid from everyone around him, and went back and forth to Foshan and Guangzhou three times a week to learn Cantonese embroidery, and the famous Cantonese embroiderers Liang Guoxing and Wu Yuzhen praised him. "According to them, I am very talented. I am very sensitive to color, for example, a piece of kapok, people may embroider three to four or five colors, I will embroider more than a dozen colors, the transition is very natural. ”
Subversive to traditional Cantonese embroidery
It can take months or even a year or two to create an embroidery
Slowly, Wang Xinyuan, who had mastered the basic techniques of Cantonese embroidery, was no longer satisfied with the creation of traditional flower and bird themes. He integrated his favorite historical relics into the embroidery, and made a subversive innovation on the traditional embroidery.
He spent three months in the museum looking at the bronzes, studying how to embroider the vicissitudes of the bronzes. "How do you embroider it? Like we are layered, two, three, or even four, constantly layered on top of each other. In the process of superimposing, the silk is constantly split thick. One of his bronze works is available in 1,176 colours.
Wang Xinyuan completed an embroidery,
It often takes months or even a year or two.
Maintain a dozen hours of dedication every day,
Meticulous attention to detail.
Such a high-intensity devotion to creation has made Wang Xinyuan's works more and more sophisticated, and it has also made his body light red. After thinking about it, he quit his old job and opened an embroidery shop, hoping to support his family with his craft. Even at this time, Wang Xinyuan still felt unconfident in his identity as an "embroidered man". It wasn't until three months after the opening that the embroidery was sold for the first time, and the customer's affirmation made Wang Xinyuan's embroidery life usher in a real turning point.
The customer looked at my work and asked who embroidered it. Actually, I was tempted to say that I didn't embroider it myself, but I couldn't help but say the truth, 'This is what I embroidered'. Wang Xinyuan recalled that the customer was very surprised to see him embroidering in person, "He didn't look at me with strange eyes, but with a very respectful and admiring eye, and bought 3 pieces in one go that day." So I felt a sense of accomplishment and gave me a lot of confidence all at once.
"Inheritance is not conservative, innovation does not forget the roots"
Attract the attention of the younger generation to Guangxiu
Since then, Wang Xinyuan has never concealed his identity as an "embroiderer", and he has begun to recruit apprentices, taking it as his responsibility to inherit and develop this ancient skill. In Wang Xinyuan's view, one person's efforts are far from enough, so that Guangxiu can break out of the circle, it must attract the participation and attention of the younger generation.
In recent years, taking advantage of the country's efforts to increase the protection and promotion of traditional intangible cultural heritage items, Wang Xinyuan has worked hard to promote the traditional skill of Cantonese embroidery to young people, and in addition, he has been exploring how to broaden the career path of Cantonese embroidery practitioners.
In Guangdong, many primary and secondary schools have included Guangxiu in their elective courses, which has brought hope to Wang Xinyuan. His team has signed contracts with more than 10 primary and secondary schools to bring Guangxiu into children's classrooms. "I would design red pandas and unicorns for him, attract them with materials that they were interested in, and let them calm down and embroider their favorite patterns. ”
From insisting on the love of the young man "embroidery"
to the inheritors who are actively pioneering
Wang Xinyuan poured love into a stitch and a thread
It also makes life bloom with gorgeous dream flowers
I hope to pass it on!
Source: CCTV News, netizen comments
Editors: Li Lijie, Gu Yingqi (intern)
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