By Xinyi Li, EDITOR  The 51-year-old Yang Yi is an inheritor of a Chongqing intangible cultural heritage-paper cutting project. In the meantime, she has been shortlisted in 2018 “Chongqing Craftsman” for her deep love in paper cutting. As a professional paper cutting artist, she prefers a previous era when she could cut anything she wanted. “All my paper cutting works at that time were full of childishness. It became my lifelong interest, and such interest supports me to become what I am today.”

Yang Yi's working tool basically is a scissor

Dare to do Favorite Things, Job-hopping for Art

In 1988, 21-year-old Yang Yi got her first job, which was in Party School of Sichuan Provincial Commission. After occasionally seeing a recruitment from a craft factory, she felt this was exactly her dream job. She drew a vivid cat with bright piercing eyes to apply for the job, which immediately drew the interviewer's attention. Thus, she joined in this loam-wall craft factory from a well-paid job in the School of Sichuan Provincial Commission.

One of her painting works

In the craft factory, she found that paper cutting, as such a simple art creation, could sketch vividly real contours of human being’s romantic charm. Later, she changed another job and worked in a small wheat straw handiwork mill, where she dared to try and design, and started to make innovations in wheat straw design. She gained a lot after job-hopping from the first craft factory to another two factories. The word job-hopping was quite strange at that time. 

Some of Yang Yi's artworks

Integration of Tradition and Innovation 

A lady

“To be precise, paper cutting is just an interest for me.” Yang Yi, who learned paper cutting at a very early age, regarded paper cutting as her lifelong career in 2005.

In 2005, she started to try to make paper cutting works through carving by chance, and unexpectedly succeeded. She found a way to express beauty by paper cutting design through this successful attempt, and began to combine the creation of paper cutting and clip art. She also made more attempts in paper cutting techniques by using clip art techniques.

A lady 

Since 2005, Yang Yi began to regard paper cutting as her lifelong career. The year 2018 is the thirteenth year for her to embark on paper cutting. Over the years, she has given performances with her paper cutting works in other countries around the world, such as America, Mexico, Malaysia, Germany, France and Spain. 

A lady with the jar

Inherit Paper Cutting Art 

“Art is an invaluable treasure. I don’t want to sell my works because I cherish them very much,” said Yang Yi.

A beautiful tree

Among her clip art works, there is one named Fishing Alone in Snow. In the work, an old man covering a straw rain cape is fishing in cold snow. The scene is exactly the same as that in A River Scene in Snow written by Liu Zongyuan, a famous poet, literati and philosopher in the Tang Dynasty. An old man once wanted to buy the Fishing Alone in Snow, but she refused. After all, every clip art work is a unique item, and also an indivisible part of an artist.

The natural viewing 

Yang Yi said that her ultimate goal is to inherit paper cutting techniques. A pair of scissors and a piece of colored paper manifest and embrace this boundless world. Golden years are buried in lines, and inheritance and spreading is incorporated in folding and turn-over techniques. There is a kind of people who are keen on one thing in their whole life, inheriting the spirit of perseverance of craftsman and promoting the brilliance of traditional culture. Despite vicissitude on their faces, their smile is always bright and glorious. Yang Yi is exactly such a kind of person.

Yang Yi teaches paper cutting to locals.

Source: CQCB