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Young artists add their own inspiration to tradition
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-15 09:07
Long Yizhen, 11, wearing a traditional Miao dress with a flower embroidery
pattern, sits besides a small wooden desk and works on a paper-cut.
Children from the La'ershan Hope Primary
School in Fenghuang County knead clay dug from the fields to make pottery.
[China Daily] | The sunshine is radiant and
minutes later, drops of sweat run down her forehead. However, Long does not seem
to take notice. Her earnest expression makes visitors hesitant to disturb her.
It is a luxury to own a colour pencil for the children living in the remote
deep mountains in the Xiangxi Tujia/Miao Autonomous Prefecture in the west of
Central China's Hunan Province.
However, the children of the Miao ethnic group in the La'ershan Hope Primary
School in Fenghuang County are getting the chance to enjoy an entirely new sort
of fine art class.
Mud, straw, bark, stones and bits of cloth have been turned into imaginative
works by their nimble, little hands.
A picture drew drawn by a student at the
Xiangxi Yongshun Experimental School. [China
Daily] | The children have decorated the
playground of their old, shabby school building, turning it into a garden of art
with their instinctive creations.
Here, the folk fine art of the Xiangxi, or Western Hunan region has been
expressed by the hands of children with their special perspective.
Straw dragonflies fly around the big trees, on whose branches baby dolls made
from colourful cloth are attached.
Below the trees are all sorts of utensils made of straw, such as brooms,
baskets and bowls.
The visitors are most fascinated by the different stories being told by the
straw figures.
Folk fairy tales and traditional holiday celebration are also the favourites
of the young artists.
Traditionally, paper-cuts made by Miao women are used for embroidery
patterns. But nowadays, the handicraft is in danger of extinction.
Fortunately, Long cherishes the art - it is her favourite subject.
"The teacher does not have any particular requirement for us at all," she
says.
"I just cut whatever patterns I like, though sometimes he will give us a
helping hand when we have difficulties."
Long uses pencils to draw a Miao girl holding straws on a piece of paper,
which she claims will bring a significant harvest.
She wants to make her picture more beautiful, so a butterfly is added next to
the girl.
The paper-cut patterns created by Long and her classmates clearly reflect the
Xiangxi Miao embroidery tradition, which features flowers and grasses.
When looking at his students enjoying their fine art class, Long Junjia, a
village teacher, recalls that two years ago, it was a great headache for him to
follow textbooks to teach the class.
The students could not pay for water-colour paintbrushes, which the text
required. Thus, interest in the fine art class dwindled quickly.
Last July, the school became one of seven in Xiangxi to be covered by the
"Dandelion Action" programme, part of a three-year project for after-school fine
art education.
Launched by the Commission for Children's Art under the Chinese Artists'
Association, the project aims at merging folk art essence and the most creative
fine art education, while protecting and rescuing intangible cultural heritage.
Rich tradition
Xiangxi is an ancient and still very mysterious place. Ancestors of the Miao
and Tujia ethnic groups settled in the region thousands of years ago.
In their long history, they have created colourful folk culture and art,
featuring paper-cuts, embroidery, batik, and brocade and carving.
However, like almost all intangible cultural heritage products in the world,
they have been eroded by modern and foreign cultures and the market economy.
Wu Xiangying, a paper-cut folk artist, used to travel to Japan in the 1980s
to show his craft. But nowadays, Wu is only able to survive by selling shoes at
a fair.
In Xiangxi, more ageing folk artists pass away each year. Others, like Wu,
have to give up their beloved art for economic reasons and their children fail
to pick up the skills.
"If they are not rescued in time, Xiangxi's folk fine art will be lost
forever," said Liu Yuxin, a researcher with the prefecture's education research
institute.
With the rich cultural legacy of various ethnic minorities in Xiangxi, Xie
Lifang, the veteran art educator in charge of "Dandelion Action," is exploring
with her colleagues a sustainable way of integrating ethnic folk art with
children's fine art education.
Her enlightening concept of a feasible, sustainable and practical education
mode won backing from the Ford Foundation last July, which so far has 17
programmes in China focusing on rescuing intangible cultural heritage.
"While emphasizing that learning fine art is deeply rooted with local
culture, we enable the children to gradually attain a basic knowledge of fine
art, and we try to consolidate their love of the culture of their own ethnic
groups," said Xie.
"Our ultimate aim is to encourage them to protect their own art and culture."
Xie said she believed that only when the new generation develops a sense of
protection will Chinese folk art be salvaged from the brink of extinction.
She also stressed that the innovative spirit of the children must be fully
encouraged during their art education.
"There must be something new in the class. We are not training paper-cut
craftsmen who can only strictly following traditions," said Xie.
Curriculum development
During last year's summer vacation, Xie joined teachers from selected
experimental schools to visit the folk handicraft people in Xiangxi. This has
helped enrich the fine art curriculum, she said.
Xie is a tough-minded woman who impresses others with her persistence in
preserving folk art.
In classes, teachers only chose the types of folk fine arts that require
simple tools, materials and techniques.
The paper-cut, as the most influential folk art in the region, has been
adopted as the elementary course for the experimental schools.
At the primary school attached to the Normal College of Jishou University,
located in the prefecture, the teachers found that some students had difficulty
using knives and scissors in their fine art classes, preferring to tear the
paper with their fingers.
It was a great inspiration for the teachers, who believed that the
children had made an innovation in the traditional paper-cutting art. While
preserving the original characteristics, it adds a new form of expression.
"The unusual patterns fully depict their (the children's) innocence,
simplicity and primitiveness," said Chen Wei, a fine art teacher at the school.
The children appear to be tearing the paper at will, but the process reflects
their imagination.
The experimental schools are able to select and develop their own curriculums
according to local conditions.
The pottery making class at Beisha Hope Primary School in Luxi County and the
learning of brocade at Longshan County's Min'an No 2 Primary School are typical
examples of effective utilization of local cultural and natural resources.
Long Yizhen and her schoolmates have made several field trips with their
teacher, Long Junjia, to find new sources of artistic inspiration.
With mud they dug from the fields, the students displayed their talent in
making pottery.
They also went to paddy fields to collect straw, to a sawmill to collect bark
and to a river to gather pebbles.
"In my class, I just hope that they can develop their instinctive love for
fine art and let their originality flow. I just watch them and give them some
guidance when necessary," Long says.
All the children are happy when it is time for the fine art class. For them,
it is time to play and create.
But traditional folk fine art also plays a role in class.
In some cases, Long has taken his students to visit the families of old Miao
women, to learn their paper-cut and embroidery skills.
The children's works also impress their teachers.
"As a painter, I feel quite ashamed and astonished when seeing their works,"
said Zhu Fan, who is employed by the art commission under the Chinese Artists'
Association.
"I am sometimes at a loss over what to draw. But the children have helped me
regain my inspiration, my creativity."
He Yunlan, director of the Commission for Children's Art, says it is
depressing to see that many of the fine art works being produced by adult
artists have already lost the most basic elements of truth.
"In the children's works, I can see innocence again," He said. "The innocence
and simplicity of the children are in great harmony with those of folk art."
Xie Lifang compared preserving folk fine art to protecting a rare species of
fish.
They could be turned into specimens and stored in a museum. But they could
also be allowed to swim freely in rivers.
"The second is a much better option," Xie said.
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