Dilemmas faced by folk paper-cutting artists in the development of Chinese folk paper-cutting
As a traditional handicraft, folk paper-cutting has mostly formed a family, individual or workshop-style production structure. For a long time, it has not only met the needs of ones own life, but also created economic value for artists engaged in this industry. . But today, the existing life patterns are changing rapidly, the status of folk art and artists has not been fully recognized and affirmed, and the potential cultural and economic value of paper-cutting skills have not been clearly highlighted. This makes the main creative body of paper-cutting art - ―Folk artists began to doubt and deny their own culture.
Due to the imbalance of regional economic development, there is still a large gap between the east and west of my country, and between cities and rural areas. Therefore, the conditions faced by paper-cutting folk artists in different regions will also be different. In rural areas with backward economies, many people, little land, and no stable source of livelihood, the yearning for urban life has led to a large outflow of young people. Although these areas have relatively completely preserved the folk paper-cutting skills due to their isolation, they have no successors and are facing the crisis of losing their skills. In some economically developed or rising areas along the coast, many folk paper-cutting artists have followed the wave of business, abandoned their paper-cutting skills, and switched to other industries. Even some artists who still continue to engage in paper-cutting just stick to their ancestral traditions. Craftsmanship has no motivation for development and innovation. In order to pursue temporary profits, some artists follow the trend, reducing the quality of paper-cutting or giving up their own style. This naturally leads to the inability to improve the quality of folk paper-cutting, the convergence of styles and the dissatisfaction of artists. The decline of craftsmanship. In addition, commercial paper-cutting during the planned economy period had its own business system. At that time, there was the Arts and Crafts Research Institute for design, the paper-cutting production base for production, the Arts and Crafts Building and the foreign trade department for sales.
In todays era of reform and opening up, the planned economy has disintegrated and the original business system has been broken. Some processing workers directly face the market and sell at low prices, creating malicious competition, thus causing market chaos. Their paper-cuts have no creation, copyright, and quality inspection, causing a large number of inferior commercial paper-cuts to flood the market. In fact, the paper-cut culture contained in the folk is a huge material wealth, and its potential value is gradually emerging. The inheritance of paper-cut artThe heir will benefit from it. How to transform potential resource advantages into actual economic benefits, protect and improve workers' enthusiasm for creating art, so that they can benefit from production and improve their quality of life is the basis for whether folk paper-cutting can continue to survive. This is an issue that requires special attention during the implementation of protection.
