Shandong Gaomi paper-cutting artist Fan Zuoxin’s paper-cutting traces its origins
Before the 1980s, paper-cutting was not a characteristic of Henan Village compared with neighboring villages and towns. Similar to other villages in Gaomi, most of the clothes worn by villagers are handmade. Paper-cutting in villages usually involves embroidery patterns such as shoe flowers and insoles. In addition, before glass windows and electric lights became popular in the early 1980s, villagers would make their own window grilles or go to the market to buy them during the Chinese New Year. When they get married, they will ask someone to cut wedding flowers. The roof of the new house is decorated with ceiling flowers, fish, etc. When an old man dies, he will be buried wearing shoes decorated with flowers on the toe caps. In addition, there are two or three experts in the village who are good at paper-cutting, and the locals call them "trick people". Their paper-cuts are circulated among families, relatives, neighbors and even outside the village.
Fan Zuoxin, representative of Shandong Gaomi paper-cut characters
After the Cultural Revolution, there was an upsurge in rescuing folk culture initiated by the local county cultural center. To discover, organize and protect folk culture within the county, hire experienced people to copy the old paper-cut samples collected in the county cultural center, and also recruit young people to train reserve forces. After the paper-cutting in the county was discovered, sorted and promoted by the county cultural center, it began to establish its reputation and status nationwide. Fan Zuoxin from Henan Village is a paper-cutting expert discovered by the county cultural center during a census of local culture. He participated in the work of replicating high-density paper-cutting and training new students. After the training at the cultural center, he returned to the village from the county. But since then, a series of media interviews, awards, exhibitions, commemorative activities, overseas exchanges and other activities have closely linked him and his family to Gaomi paper-cutting. The paper-cutting made by the Fan family has spread from the village to other provinces, across the country and even abroad, and he has also transformed from an ordinary farmer into a paper-cutting master and artist. In books introducing Gaomi villages, the paper-cutting story of him and his family takes up most of the space introducing Henan villages. He became a well-known professional paper-cutting artist.
In fact, Fan Zuoxin came into contact with the paper-cut patterns circulated in the county while participating in the reproduction of paper-cut patterns in the county cultural center. At the same time that the "fine" style of high-density paper-cutting was established, his paper-cutting style was also directly guided by the cultural center and began to ""Fine" transformation. It can be said that the cooperation between the Gaomi Cultural Center and local artists has directly affected the local paper-cutting style, and even directly participated in the creation process of the style. In the past 30 years, the Fan family and their paper-cutting have been greatly influenced by people from academia and the country at all levels. The guidance and shaping of mechanisms such as evaluation and exhibition participation by cultural institutions and media have increasingly formed an interactive model around awards, exhibitions, external exchanges and sales, which is separated from and increasingly alienated from the inherent inheritance logic and path in the village.
Fan Zuoxin’s representative works of paper-cutting
In 2003, the Ministry of Culture of the Chinese government began to implement the intangible cultural heritage protection project. As of June 2009, 1,483 representative inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage projects have been recognized, including 24 inheritors of paper-cutting. In addition, the "Interim Measures for the Identification and Management of Representative Inheritors of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Projects" were also promulgated. The inheritance of paper-cutting in the village and the inheritance under the intervention of state administrative power are intertwined under multiple backgrounds. Research on the inheritance mechanism and conditions of paper-cutting is also increasingly on the agenda.
