Interview record of traditional skills

If there is no accident, their life may be like this: Hua Jian and Wu Qimin get up early to make teapots and study the ratio of spout to handle; As a supervisor of pottery, Yu Yin manages all departments as a whole; Mother Lin Bing is still busy making silverware crafts.

Their life, originally just a microcosm of the daily life of thousands of craftsmen in Qian Qian, is stable and quiet, and rarely receives attention. However, driven by the sense of mission, they picked up their mobile phones and cameras, aimed their cameras at themselves, and spread their intangible skills to the public with the help of Tik Tok e-commerce.

From Apprentice to Master of Ceramic Art

Hua Jian said frankly: "Zisha has given us a lot for so many years.

Hua Jian, a native of Yixing, is a researcher-level senior arts and crafts artist who is good at making square wares. His wife Wu Qimin mainly makes round wares. Homework is very common in the atmosphere where every family in Yixing makes bricks and mortar, and Hua Jian and Wu Qimin are the representatives.

1982, Huajian graduated from high school and was assigned to Yixing Zisha Factory. Prior to this, Huajian didn't know much about purple sand. After entering the factory, we should first carry out vocational training, attend public welfare classes, learn writing brush, sketch and so on. And then study in classes in a few months. Hua Jian was assigned to Gu Shaopei's class and studied under the artist Gu Shaopei.

I started work before 8 am, didn't finish until 9 pm, and then walked home from the factory for half an hour-this apprenticeship lasted for three years. During the three-year apprenticeship, I worked as a semi-manual mold, and my monthly salary was only 15 yuan-at that time, I only had enough food and clothing.

The process of making teapot is boring and hard. Despite the scorching sun in summer, it is not allowed to turn on the air conditioner. "Because it is dry, in fact, when you make a pot, the window has to be closed, and the wind also affects the formation of purple sand.

Long-term bow work led to the apprentice suffering from cervical spondylosis and lumbar spondylosis at a young age, and the meticulous carving under the flash light also led to the presbyopia of workers much earlier than the average person. Most of the colleagues who made teapots with Hua Jian did not persist until the end of their apprenticeship, so they switched to other jobs.

Hua Jian also has the opportunity to change careers. After one year's internship, Hua Jian was transferred to be a logistics electrician and worked as an electrician in the factory for half a year. Unable to put down his beloved purple sand work, Huajian found the factory director and asked to be transferred back to the purple sand factory as an apprentice.

Upon the expiration of his three-year apprenticeship, Hua Jian was admitted to Zisha Research Institute of this factory and continued to study under Gu Shaopei. 1985, Wu Qimin entered Yixing Zisha Factory. The two became attached to Zisha and worked together on the road of Zisha.

Making a teapot is divided into several steps: beating mud, enclosing the bucket, beating the bucket, pasting negative film, adjusting fertilizer mud, grinding the bucket, making buttons, making the mouth of the teapot, making the handle and finally improving and modifying it. In Hua Jian's view, "the most important thing to make a pot is to understand mud. The softness and hardness of the mud, when to do it and when to stop, should have a feel.

Take the mud sticks as an example, and use a pair of the largest mud sticks to make mud pieces. This piece of clay is the future pot body. According to the size of the pot, the thickness of the mud slice is generally between 0.5cm- 1cm. It's a very simple step, in fact, it pays great attention to strength. If it is too light or too heavy, it is not conducive to the molding of the pot body. Therefore, mastering mud properties is the key to laying mud strips. "Play to master the soft and hard. If the mud is a little wet, it will be more difficult to play the barrel, and there will be no skeleton when playing; When the water is dry, the teapot will be obedient and easy to form.

In 2000, the couple, who were already well-known in the industry, set up their own studio and taught a group of apprentices for free. Some businessmen came here and bought teapots at high prices. The life of Huajian and Wu Qimin began to improve.

In May, 2003, Wu Qimin's work "Zisha Daxihu" was permanently collected by Wuxi Museum. In June 2006, 165438+ 10, their cooperative work "Da Bin Hexagon Pot" was collected by Ziguangge, Zhongnanhai. From June, 5438 to October, 2008/kloc-0, Wu Qimin's Purple Sand-New Ruyi Pot was permanently collected by ceramics museum, Yixing, China. Since then, the two have become famous masters of arts and crafts in the industry, and have been employed by the art design departments of major universities. The market price of the teapot they made is as high as 200,000 yuan.

In 2020, @ Wu Qimin Huajian Zisha Studio settled in Tik Tok, and most of the released videos were about the making process and historical details of Zisha Pot. Hua Jian said: "In terms of living materials, we should repay Zisha. Speaking with works is to do things well, create several masterpieces handed down from generation to generation, live up to yourself and achieve your life goals. At the same time, I hope to make more publicity with the help of Tik Tok platform, so that Zisha can be known to the public and realize cultural inheritance and protection.

Hua Jian and Wu Qimin are both 57 years old this year, and the pace of making teapot has slowed down, leaving more stages for young people. In Huajian's and Wu Qimin's studios, there are now thirty or forty apprentices who have become the main force in making teapot. Hua Jian and Wu Qimin's children also inherited their mantle, engaged in the publicity work of Zisha characters, and continued to practice for the promotion and inheritance of Zisha.

Jingdezhen "Three Generations of Porcelain: From Learning to Innovation"

Yu Yin, born in Jingdezhen after 1990, is a third generation descendant of Yilintang.

Yilintang was founded by Yu Yin's grandfather in 1953, with a history of 68 years. Yu Yin's grandfather used to be the chief engineer of kiln design in Dongfeng Porcelain Factory, one of the top ten porcelain factories in Jingdezhen, and his grandparents were good at drawing pastels. In the 1980s, Yu Yin's father took over Yilintang. Two generations, with one heart and one mind, studied pastel porcelain and enjoyed a high reputation in the industry. In 20 12, Yu Yin returned to Jingdezhen and officially took over Yilintang.

Before leaving Jingdezhen for college, Yu Yin never thought that she would be engaged in the ceramic industry. In the lingering eyes of childhood, pastel porcelain was just a livelihood at home. "It seems that this has nothing to do with myself.

In 2008, Yu Yin left Jingdezhen and went to Shanghai to study at a university, majoring in art design. After leaving their homeland, I found that foreigners have different views on ceramics from Jingdezhen locals. "Because I grew up in this environment, many people in my family do this, and every household also has workshops, which will be considered very common.

After her freshman year, Yu Yin chose to drop out of school and returned to Jingdezhen to study pastel porcelain with her father. Pastel porcelain is one of the four famous traditional porcelains in Jingdezhen. It has a history of more than 300 years. It is the darling of the royal family. "Never before, never after; Exquisite and eye-catching, with extraordinary workmanship, it can be called the treasure of the East.

Learning pastel porcelain is not an easy task. Yu Yin said that there are 72 processes, from the raw materials of ceramics, to the drawing and pushing of ceramics, water supply and firing tools, to drawing pastels, filling and dyeing, washing and dyeing, bottoming and color matching, and firing. "In ancient times, there was a saying that' seventy second-hand products are used to make a finished product', which means that it takes 72 processes to make a porcelain. Now, after our simplification, there are at least 30 channels. If anything goes wrong in any of these processes, the whole process will come back. This leads to a very low forming rate of pastel porcelain, and it takes 2-3 months to make a cup.

Design and molding are also a big problem. At the beginning of design, it is often impossible to predict the forming trend of the final porcelain. The thickness and final firing of the green body directly affect the stability and modeling changes of porcelain. It is common that the finished product is different from the original design concept. On the whole, the forming rate of famille rose porcelain is only 65%-75%.

Yu Yin admits that people who often make ceramics have different breathing rhythms and hands from ordinary people. "If a ceramic painter breathes too close to porcelain, it is easy to produce water droplets, and oily pigments cannot be drawn, so the breathing rhythm will be adjusted; A ceramic master who works hard in drawing blanks has to deal with porcelain tires every day, and his hands will get wet and crack easily in winter.

Although the process of learning art is boring and arduous, compared with others, the lingering sound is still lucky. It takes about 20 years to fully master the technology and management of ceramic industry, and experience is preferred. Yu Yin, however, was born in a ceramic family, and he learned the manufacturing technology and raw material processing technology of ceramics from an early age, so he naturally learned much faster than the average person. In addition, 20% of the creative staff of the team are inherited by Yu Yin's father, which makes the management of Yu Yin much easier.

Different from her parents' ideas, Yu Yin officially took over Yilintang on 20 12, hoping to present a vessel related to the times and close to life. Yu Yin's team boldly innovated and combined modern fashion with traditional IP, which was widely praised by the younger generation.

In 2020, Yu Yin team settled in Tik Tok to promote ceramics, and the account number was @ Jingdezhen Moshe Ceramics Collection. At first, only one or two hundred people watched the live broadcast, and now there are more than 100 thousand fans. Yu Yin said frankly, "The speed of this powder increase exceeded our expectations, and the public is still very interested in ceramics.

"Many people think that ceramics are mysterious, and the public doesn't know much about the intrinsic value and production process of ceramics, so what we have been doing is to tell the outside world the production process of ceramics, what problems will be faced in the production process, and the cultural value contained in it. There are many active users in Tik Tok, who can share the media face to face, which is a very good communication platform for us.

Yu Yin said: "Tik Tok's e-commerce and other new channels have also made the sales of porcelain convenient and efficient, which can make more young people fall in love with ceramics, which is actually a protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.

In March this year, the Yilintang team also participated in the "Intangible Culture Festival". Jingdezhen's non-legacy teachers gathered together. "Do enamel, do blue and white, do pastel, exchange and learn from each other. Tik Tok e-commerce will also provide guidance. This is a two-way communication platform.

From "tinker" to a generation of silverware masters

Mu, 5 1 year-old, from Heqing, Dali, is a representative inheritor of the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects, a national master of arts and crafts in China, a senior arts and crafts artist in Yunnan Province, and an executive vice president of Yunnan Arts and Crafts Industry Association. Locals call him "a flag of Heqing silverware."

At the age of 32, my mother Lin Bing became the youngest provincial master of arts and crafts and a non-genetic inheritor of the industry, but she was also recognized as an "old master" with exquisite skills. His skillfully forged silverware won numerous awards at home and abroad and was collected by major museums.

This seemingly glamorous silverware master also suffered a lot in the process of learning art. When his mother Lin Bing was only four months in her mother's womb, his father died of tuberculosis. At the age of 6, his mother left him forever because of a cerebral hemorrhage. He followed his aunt to Xinhua Village and grew up here.

Because of his poor family, he left his hometown at the age of 14, and started his career as a "tinker" with Master-carrying a burden of tens of kilograms, following Master all the way over mountains and mountains, bumping around in Tibetan areas, Guizhou, Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, and helping people make a living with silverware, which is also called "going abroad" by the people.

After three years of study, Lin Bing's mother's skills have been excellent. Duan is an old silversmith in the village. He is very famous and has good craftsmanship, so his mother decided to worship him as a teacher. The old master is very conservative, saying that he never recruits foreign apprentices. Lin Bing's mother grinds her face for a long time, and the old man finally agrees.

Duan dui is quite harsh and severe. As a silversmith, forging is the basic skill. For half a year, Lin Bing's mother has been playing with a sledgehammer from morning till night, and her hands are swollen every day. This is unbearable for many people, but he thinks that the so-called "practicing martial arts without practicing martial arts" is the necessary basis for becoming a good silversmith. This is also the period that really made him advance by leaps and bounds. After that, he played with the master to hide the copper ladle, and others could not see the difference.

At the beginning of the teacher, the master was still unwilling to teach the secret recipe of welding brass. Mother Lin Bing pondered it over and over again, deliberately broke a hole in the ladle and took it to the master to mend it. Several times in a row, the master taught him welding temperature and ingredients.

1987, Lin Bing's mother wants to go out and do handicrafts by herself. After repeated screening in the places she had been, she finally chose Daocheng. At first, I also learned and did it. In those years, Mu worshipped many ethnic minority artists as teachers in Daocheng, and accumulated rich experience in craft production through continuous practice. According to the requirements of local Tibetans, he carefully made ornaments and utensils for them with real materials and made friends with many Tibetan compatriots.

1997, after learning that his hometown would be developed into a national tourist village, Mu resolutely chose to return to his hometown for development in order to pass on his craft to his hometown and inject new vitality into his hometown's traditional silverware craft, and took in more than 100 apprentices, increasing the number of practitioners of traditional metal crafts. Mother Lin Bing taught them skills without reservation, lest they should not learn. "The inheritance of a skill must be strengthened through the participation of many people." Mother Lin Bing thinks that when we study, we are afraid that our master will not teach, and now young people have no patience. I teach them for fear that they won't learn. Most of his apprentices are the mainstay in the inheritance of this skill. Four of them have been awarded as "China National Metal Art Masters" successively, and other apprentices have also won various honorary titles at different levels.

In order to let more people know the production details of silverware craft and publicize the silverware that my hometown spared no effort, Lin Bing's mother's studio settled in Tik Tok platform, constantly showing her new craft through short videos, so that more young people can understand and learn this craft. Many people are amazed in the comment area: "I know that the silver pot was knocked like this for the first time; It's amazing! This is a great national craftsman!