Smooth sailing, happy life at the door, magpie climbing plum, blossoming rich and noble... Handmade paper-cutting works with auspicious meanings are written by Shi Junfeng, the inheritor of Fengning Manchu paper-cutting, and have become the decoration choice of many families in the New Year and New Year, doubling the festive atmosphere.
This article was published in the magazine China Women
Shi Junfeng instructs apprentices to cut paper (Photo / Guo Xinxin)
Shi Junfeng is a master of arts and crafts in Hebei Province, the head of the Shuangqiao Shi's Paper-cutting Art Museum in Chengde City, and the provincial inheritor of Fengning Manchu paper-cutting. Most of her works are based on traditional folklore, with a wide range of themes such as characters, animals, and scenery. Ingeniously conceived, smooth lines, simple and flexible, lifelike, very strong national and regional characteristics, with a strong visual impact and artistic appeal.
Women in Goumen Village, Hao village, Tucheng Town, Fengning County, practice their knife skills assiduously (Photo / Liu Guizhi)
Fengning Manchu paper-cutting is quite unique and the procedures are complicated. A paper-cut work must go through more than ten processes such as drawing, smoking, cutting, coloring, and mounting, and is included in the list of world intangible cultural heritage.
Shi Junfeng's works on display (Photo/ Wang Yaming)
For more than 30 years, Shi Junfeng has been on the road of inheriting and developing the Manchu paper-cutting art of Fengning, and his works have repeatedly won the first prize of the National Folk Paper-cutting Grand Prix and many other domestic and foreign awards.
Shi Junxiu demonstrates the traditional window pattern making process at the Art Museum (Photo / Wang Yaming)
She is also known as the "paper-cutting goddess who broke into the world with scissors", and has been invited to foreign countries for artistic exchanges many times, leading the Fengning Manchu paper-cutting skills to go abroad.
Pasting handmade paper cuts on glass (Photo/ Guo Xinxin)
Shi Junfeng also set up the Shi's Paper-cutting Art Museum in his hometown, and served as an instructor in two intangible cultural heritage poverty alleviation paper-cutting employment workshops in Fengning Zhang Million Village and Haocun Goumen Village, working hard for the protection and inheritance of Fengning Manchu paper-cutting.
Shi Junfeng trains villagers in Zhangjiying Township, Longhua County (Photo / Liu Guizhi)
At the same time, Shi Junfeng has also been exploring how to transform a single Fengning Manchu paper-cut form into various cultural and creative products, such as silk scarves, hijabs, clothing, porcelain, glass products and other derivatives, relying on the national "Intangible Cultural Heritage + Poverty Alleviation" project and with the help of e-commerce platforms, to help local villagers get rich by craftsmanship and create a better life, so that paper-cutting art can approach the daily lives of more people, and also let the paper-cutting intangible cultural heritage continue to glow with new vitality in innovative inheritance.
Photo courtesy of: Chengde Female Photographers Association
Source: Chinese women