By Yuling Chen, EDITOR Leave is ordinary things in people's daily lives, but the artworks of leaf carving are special.

Huang Jilin, a 63-year-old retiree of the textile mill in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, is one of the inheritors of Yanxing Paper-Cutting. She uses a pair of scissors to reveal the vicissitudes of life through ordinary leaves.

Huang Jilin in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality is carving leaves. (Photo by Li Ye)

Huang Jilin considers leaf caving as a derivative developed from paper-cutting. With the skills of paper carving, carvers can sculpture some pattern on the leaf with veins, thus giving birth to another life through the natural incompleteness. Since then, there has been an indissoluble bond between her and leaf carving.

Ordinary fallen leaves are treasures in her eyes

The fallen leaves are scattered in the cold winter. Crouching down, she picks up pieces faded just now, whose complete veins are still visible with a close look.

An ordinary leaf may be worthless in others’ eyes. But she regards it as a treasure and has the ability to reproduce its beauty in spring with another method.

She is collecting leaves. (Photo by Li Ye)

Based on the artful structure of naturally fallen leaves, she can carve animals & flowers, landscapes as well as the colorful world on a pocket-sized leaf with a nicking tool. These exquisite works of leaf carving art show the beauty of the fantastic world in a vivid way.

“My father is a Chinese teacher fond of collecting various books about literature and art. Since there were few entertainment programs in my junior high school, I learned the arts such as paper-cutting and printmaking in his books.”  Huang said.

In fact, a majority of their generation was good at paper-cutting, but she is the one that sticks it out. Therefore, she has made such achievements, becoming a master in arts and crafts in Chongqing, and a representative inheritor of paper-cutting of Chongqing’s intangible cultural heritage.

Leaf carving involves complicating craftsmanship

Huang Jilin introduces that a masterpiece comes out from a normal leaf after dozens of processes, including selection, cleaning, soaking, painting, carving, and airing. It takes nearly over two months to complete a work of art.

Leaf carving artworks made by Huang Jilin, an intangible heritage inheritor in Chongqing. (Photo by Li Ye)

With a nicking tool, a wax plate, a leaf, and a table lamp, Huang Jilin will sit down at the workbench by the room window at home for four to five hours. “Choosing the leaf is key to leaf carving. Due to a large number of fallen leaves, winter and autumn are the golden time for picking.” Huang Jilin says that after the birth of templates, the arts like printmaking and paper-cutting can be reproduced through machines, and their value, therefore, have declined as well. However, as the raw materials are leaves, sculptors carve according to the leaf’s shape and composition, making each work unique. Each has its own merits.

Owing to the inclusiveness of art, plus the foundation in paper-cutting, Huang Jilin is able to innovate leaf carving.

“I have insisted on the old craftsmanship in my life, and retirement gives value to what I like. These are the worthiness and happiness in my old age.” As Huang Jilin has said, holding fast to inheritance and innovation can reinvigorate the traditional handicraft with a brighter future.

Source: CQWB

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