Qi Guoxiang: Keep nostalgia with clay sculpture

On August 26, Qiu Gao was cool, and an ordinary farmhouse in Xiaomengqiao Village, Dacheng County, villager Qi Guoxiang was seriously producing farming series clay sculptures. A small piece of cement is skilled by pinching, pressing, carving, etc. A peanut -shaped clay sculpture is quickly formed, and the works are wonderful and lifelike.

Qi Guoxiang, the inheritor of the "Traditional Hardwood Terring Box Production Skills" of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Langfang City, master of folk arts and crafts in Hebei Province. Since 1992, Qi Guoxiang has created various delicate crafts such as tweezers, windmills, scales, and mahogany fan bones with valuable wood such as Huanghuali and rosewood.

Two years ago, an accidental opportunity, Qi Guoxiang pinched his grandson to a colored mud toy. The children loved it, which greatly inspired his interest in creating clay sculpture. As a native farmer, Qi Guoxiang has a deep love for soil. In order to reflect the traditional farming culture, Qi Guoxiang, who was nearly, expressed the rural scenes he had lived in the form of clay sculptures, and specifically used the opportunity of local wind power to find the soil layer, dig the best cement and save it at home. At present, he has created scene works such as plowing, carriage, spinning lines, stone mills, drums, and tadpoles, and the shape is simple and vivid. "I hope to commemorate the scenes of their parents in the fields in this way, and retain the most beautiful nostalgia in memory." Qi Guoxiang said. In 2021, Qi Guoxiang took his clay sculpture and mahogany works to participate in Langfang City to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

Qi Guoxiang has no artistic skills, and he uses the past characters and scene photos as a reference. The people's lives with different expressions and vivid people in the past rural life are integrated into their own simple and rustic attitude of life. Creation of experience, both character and spirituality, animal activity, agricultural products with false truths, the original flavor of folk customs, delicate and dexterous techniques.

"The" spinning man "next to this 'spinning car', I was shaped according to the appearance of grandma. She used to be very clear about the picker spinning line, and I still remember it." Thinking seems to return to childhood again. I saw him gently dial the "spinning car" with his fingers. The small model was running. The cotton line slowly pulled out in the hands of "grandma", which was extremely realistic and amazing.

"In the future, I will continue to make different old objects. If possible, build a folk -made clay sculpture exhibition hall to make farming memory a culture not only let us rural people like it, but also attract people in the city to visit." Qi Guoxiang Said, "I also want to inherit the traditional craftsmanship of clay sculptures, so that more people can understand clay sculptures and make clay sculptures."

One piece of dirt, one hand, a dream at the beginning. Qi Guoxiang insisted on his own pursuit of art. He used a piece of boutique clay sculpture to record the imprint of an era, reflecting the inner world of the people's diligence, simple and self -reliant, and also shaped his exquisite life with unparalleled soil.

Qi Guoxiang and his clay sculpture work. (Reporter Jia Minglei correspondent Deng Jianmin Zhang Yidian Zhang Hongxu)

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