Chinese Folk Artists on Tour in USA and Canada

Today I bumped into a really interesting news, especially for those living in Washington or Toronto.

According to an article on the Global Times from late June to mid-July, a group of 108 Chinese folk artists will tour North America as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC in the US and the China Now Festival at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Canada.

Eight performing art programs and 16 folk handcraft art forms will be on display at the two art festivals.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival “China: Tradition and the Art of Living” will feature 120 participants among artists, dancers, craftspeople and cooks, who will share and celebrate the customs and traditions from every part of China.

Festival visitors can watch craftspeople make paper-cut designs, New Year’s prints, clay figurines, kites and sachets that are used during annual celebrations and see artists who specialize in embroidery, patchwork, batiks and porcelain.

For more information visit http://www.festival.si.edu/2014/China/

Similarly, at the China Now Festival in Toronto visiting crafts artists from various parts of China will demonstrate crafts ranging from paper-cutting to sachet- and kite-making to textiles and calligraphy.

For more information you can visit the festival`s site http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/summer/chinanow/

It`s a great chance to see so many folk artists at the same time, especially considering they come from every part of China, and even for us living here it can be hard to reach the most remote places!

If you live nearby I`d definitely recommend you to visit the festivals, and maybe after that share your opinions, pictures, etc. with me!

Trip to Suzhou - Part 1

Finally the long awaited post about the trip to Suzhou!

I know I neglected this blog lately, but on Saturday I have my first Chinese language test, and since I`m having an hard time memorizing pinyin (I get confused with Japanese), I decided to concentrate on my study.

But, finally, today I found some time to complete the report about the trip to Suzhou, so here it is!

Suzhou is an ancient city with a 2,500 years' history, and its many crafts are enlisted in China`s intangible cultural heritage, which makes it a great destination for arts and crafts enthusiasts like us. During our trip we had the chance to visit many workshops, and even to look at the making of some items!

Today I will talk about Pingjiang District, one of the places I enjoyed the most, it`s very quiet and the city`s historical feature have been well-preserved.

Suzhou is mainly famous for its gardens, placed on the UNESCO list as a World Cultural Heritage site in 1997. There were originally over a hundred but now only a few exist, some over a thousand years old. We visited the Humble Administrator's Garden, regarded as one of the four most famous gardens in China and a masterpiece in Chinese classic gardening.

Here are some pictures.

Close to the Humble Administrator's Garden you can find Suzhou Museum, which houses, among others, historic works of arts and crafts from Suzhou and its surrounding areas. I particularly liked the stunningly beautiful bamboo carvings and embroidery collections, each piece take not only a great deal of skill and precision but also plenty of patience!

Ivory carving of the eight immortals

Ivory carving

Amber carving

Bamboo, ivory, jade and even fruit shells were used for both utilitarian items, such as seals, and decorative ornaments.  

Facial cleansing pads

Child`s vest

Eyeglass case

Double-sided embroidery (modern)

Even if you`re not interested in art it`s worth just to walk in the museum to take a look at the building itself. The museum`s beautiful architecture is designed by the internationally renowned architect I. M. Pei (best known for the glass Pyramid at the Louvre in Paris), and integrates the local style of the traditional courtyard and garden architecture with a modern geometrical style. The building has white walls and grey tiles and, as you can see from the pictures, it has a Chinese garden with bamboo trees and lotus pond and also a rock landscape. 

The entrance

Bamboo trees

The pavilion

Rockery

A short walk from the museum street lays Pingjiang Street, found on Suzhou maps as far back as the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It runs for about 1.5 kilometers along Pingjiang river on one side and a collection of antique homes with white walls and black roofs on the other, and abounds with authentic Suzhou handicraft. You can really feel the history when you hit this lovely cobblestone lane!

Here we found a Kesi workshop, which is a unique Chinese traditional silk weaving technique, resembling carved artwork (Kesi means “cut silk”). It`s said that in ancient China an inch of Kesi was worth the same as an ounce of gold (and I can assure you that it`s still quite pricey).

Kesi is an integration of the skills of silk weaving and painting, and involves meticulous craftsmanship and time-consuming labor to weave the colored silk. The technique itself is very complicated, but I might try to explain it in a future post.

Here are some picture of the superbly elegant items sold at the workshop and a picture of the craftswoman at work. 

There are many other places we visited, but this post is getting too long, I call it quits for today!

In part 2 I will talk about Taohuawu New Year woodprints, we visited the workshop of Gu ZhiJun, a multiple award-winning artist who merges ancient techniques with modern design.

Now I have to get back to studying mode!

Wish me good luck!再见!

Go to Part 2 - Taohuahu New Year Woodprints