Photo shows Li Baofeng (李宝凤), a talent of paper cutting from Changchun, Jilin province. She has been titled with "the Best Craftsman Skilled with Paper Cutter in China". [Photo/Yang Haidong]

Photo shows the paper cutting of Li Baofeng (李宝凤), a talent of paper cutting from Changchun, Jilin province.

Li Baofeng (李宝凤), from Jilin province, is one of “the Best Craftsman Skilled with Paper Cutting in China”. She held a paper cutting exhibition at Yunnan Provincial Library on March 15 in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan province.

Styles with print, oil paintings and traditional Chinese paintings can be found in her paper cuttings in which monochrome is rarely used.

Though Li just brought seventy works for the exhibition in Kunming, her works totals more than one thousand. Visitors are amazed at her creations which are similar to her marvelous life.

Differences between Li’s work and the traditional paper cuttings lie in using various colors and rich layers. Li said: "Each cutting is unique and even the Chinese art paper used for cutting is researched and made by special personnel. We have applied patents for all of them."

"How many colors are there in one piece of paper?" asked the report.

"More than twenty," said she, "From the furious spring to the autumn in the serious of Four Seasons, my works are completed with paper in a plenty of colors and constructs, which involves in aesthetics, architectonics and Perspective Science."

Chromatographic and dying are top two main creations in her paper cuttings. Bright-colored, figures, plants and animals are as natural as though they were living in the frame.

"Are they really made by cutting?" asked Su Qingfu (苏庆复), a visitor, exclaiming over a cutting. After Li’s introduction, Su praised: "Oh, so beautiful. I wanna take a picture of you and your paper cutting."

Marvelous journey of paper cutting

It is hard to image that Li, eloquent, was a shy and taciturn rural teacher twenty years ago.

Li was fond of cutting paper into shapes of cats, dogs and window decorations in the child. Allocated to the Shuangyang Village (Shuangyang District today) in Changchun City, Li had been working as an art teacher for eight years.

At the very beginning of her work as a teacher, she found that the Art Textbook was not suitable for students in the poverty-stricken countryside.

Li started her paper cutting class there, since materials for paper cutting are the easiest to be found. She asked her students to bring the waste paper to the class and taught them cutting. Later, all her one hundred students won awards in an art competition nationwide. Based on the achievement, she was transferred to Changchun Municipal Children’s Palace to teach 1,000 kids to cutting art.

Li has been in love with Dream of the Red Chamber, one of China's Four Great Classical Novels, since she was a girl. All typical characters in the novel have branded in her brain. Then she pondered on making a paper cutting themed with the novel. Three years later, a masterpiece called Daguanyuan (Grand View Park), 3 meters in length and 1.6 meters in height, carved with more than 50 figures come to a completion. The work was presented to Democratic Progressive Party Central Committee as a gift by Jilin Province in 1999, which has brought the first important exhibition of Li’s paper cutting in her art career.

On account of her good social relation, she held free exhibition in Shanghai and Dalian soon, which has improved her reputation. She even started her company engaging in paper cutting in 2005.

At present, Li’s paper cutting has been listed as one of "eight best handicrafts in Changchun", being displayed all around the world. In the exhibition of Kunming, there is a paper-made work which is a delineation of a classic Russian work. It has moved many foreigners when shown in Russia last October. They are shocked by her work of art which was very like an oil painting. However, Li is not satisfied with her present achievement. "I will pass the skill on."

In addition, she schedules to invest RMB 100 million to establish a college of folk arts and craft to cultivate more talents.

Photo shows the paper cutting of Li Baofeng (李宝凤),a talent of paper cutting from Changchun, Jilin province.

 

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(Editors:Lynn, Minnie Mao)