Her two silk carpet works have been collected by the National Museum, and she has been adhering to an intangible cultural heritage skill for 50 years! Recently, Silk Carpet | Cheng Meihua | National Museum

Recently, two art wall tapestries, "Hope" and "Years of Surplus," produced by the Chinese arts and crafts master Cheng Meihua Silk Carpet Art Studio, stood out nationwide after careful selection and evaluation, and were collected by the National Museum of China.

Among them, "Years of Surplus" was completed in 2012, showcasing the beauty of concave convex art and the unique charm of "soft sculpture". On the screen, 288 carp swim freely among the peony flowers, symbolizing the auspiciousness of our motherland and having more than enough every year. The work participated in the 2014 APEC Summit in Beijing and won the "Great Power Craftsman Gold Award".

Hope was completed in 2012, inspired by the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The fish in the picture symbolize the Chinese people, holding up a bird's nest representing the Party Central Committee. The people of the whole country are closely united around the Party Central Committee, rushing towards new hope. The work has been selected for the China Contemporary Arts and Crafts Biennale and twice selected for the National Museum of China.

"50 years have passed in a blink of an eye, as if yesterday I was still the little girl who relied on crochet clothes to support her family. In the blink of an eye, today I am already 70 years old. My struggle is long and simple, because I only do one thing in my life." Cheng Meihua, a Chinese arts and crafts master and inheritor of the Jinshan Silk Carpet Weaving Technique, a Shanghai intangible cultural heritage project, said in an interview at the Jinshan Silk Carpet Factory located in Fengjing Town, Jinshan District, Shanghai in early August.

Decades ago, she lifted the beam of the Jinshan Silk Carpet Factory. Decades later, she transformed the Jinshan Silk Carpet into an intangible cultural heritage landscape, a cultural and tourism business card, and wrote a "struggle epic" for Jinshan women. It is reported that over the past half century, Cheng Meihua has grown from a technician to a master of Shanghai arts and crafts, the first Shanghai Craftsman, a recipient of the Shanghai May Day Labor Award, and a master of Chinese arts and crafts.

Elementary school apprentice, step by step climbing to the pinnacle of arts and crafts

Without family inheritance and guidance from renowned teachers, Cheng Meihua showcases the legendary struggle of an ordinary worker who, under the training system of New China, climbed to the pinnacle of Chinese and even international arts and crafts through personal struggle.

50 years ago, Cheng Meihua entered a silk carpet factory to learn art. The most basic technique of silk blankets is to tie an 8-shaped knot on the warp and cut it. The cutting knife is very sharp, and beginners often hurt their fingers. Once their hands are injured, they need to rest for several days, but Cheng Meihua is afraid of wasting time, so she wrapped the wound and continued practicing. In her first work evaluation after entering the factory, a piece of "Rich and Noble Peony" woven by her was rated as "first-class" by the master who taught her, and she was also praised as "very spiritual".

From then on, Cheng Meihua devoted her entire life to this skill. With a keen intuition for beauty, the spirit of creating new things, and a lifelong stubbornness, Cheng Meihua climbs her artistic path with clear goals and steady actions, almost every 10 years crossing a step from an ordinary technical worker to an engineer, a Shanghai master of arts and crafts, a Chinese master of arts and crafts

The first tapestry representing modern Chinese silk carpet art going global was successfully developed by her and her companions under the guidance of Professor Yuan Yunfu from the Central Academy of Fine Arts; In 1982, she represented Chinese silk carpet technicians to the International Carpet Expo held in Europe, where she demonstrated the production of silk carpets on site, opening the door for Chinese silk carpets to go global; On the basis of inheriting and promoting traditional craftsmanship, she draws on the strengths of others and is inclusive, making Jinshan Silk Carpet Factory, the only silk carpet enterprise in Shanghai, stand out in the entire southern silk carpet market

For the past 50 years, her works have been collected and displayed in important museums such as the Art Center of the United States, UNICEF, the National Museum of Art of the United States, the Shanghai World Expo, and the National Museum of China. In 2022, the Jinshan District Committee of the Communist Party of China donated Cheng Meihua's masterpiece "Born in the Sun" to the Shanghai First National Congress of the Communist Party of China Memorial Hall.

Dare to innovate and open up a new aesthetic of "Eastern Silk Carpet"

"Someone kindly suggested to me to collaborate with art masters, and the artistic value of the work has been elevated since birth, but I want to showcase my understanding of beauty." Cheng Meihua, who has mastered the skilled skills, has a groove in her heart and insists on doing "her own thing.

Standing on the shoulders of traditional silk tapestry techniques, Cheng Meihua has created a new style of Shanghai style art and is hailed by the art community as the pioneer of modern art wall tapestry.

In terms of raw materials, she innovatively uses northern Chinese tussah silk to replace southern mulberry silk, and through technological research and development, makes tussah silk more elastic, colorful, and glossy. Its effect far exceeds that of mulberry silk, and has won the "Target Product Award" in the "Six Provinces and One City" carpet quality evaluation at Shanghai Port, setting a milestone in the Chinese carpet industry; In terms of craftsmanship, she breaks the traditional flat pattern of Chinese silk carpets and uses exquisite carving to make the plane three-dimensional, giving the image the impact of "soft sculpture"; In terms of design, she breaks traditional color and pattern styles, absorbs Western aesthetic art, and creates a unique new style of Shanghai style concave convex plain matching art.

With innovative breakthroughs in new technologies, new processes, new materials, and new designs, Cheng Meihua has created the unique style of Jinshan Silk Carpet on the international stage, which has gained countless accolades. In 2003, Jinshan Silk Carpet went abroad for exhibition, refreshing the Western impression of the monotonous design and outdated craftsmanship of Eastern silk carpets, causing a sensation. The first 1.5 million yuan order arrived from Europe across the ocean. Jinshan Silk Carpet also quietly rose from this.

In recent years, whenever there is an important event at home and abroad, Cheng Meihua will definitely use heavyweight works as a tribute and commemoration. At the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, she created works such as "Welcoming the Expo with a Smile", "Carp Jumping Over the Dragon Gate", and "City Making Life Better"; In 2014, the APEC Summit was held in Beijing, and she created "Every Year Has More"; At the 2015 Milan World Expo, she created "The Eternal Peony", which symbolized the charm of China; In the 2018 China International Import Expo, she created a new version of "Every Year Has More"; In the 2021 Dubai World Expo, she created two works: "The Light of Happiness" and "Hope". In 2022, the 6th World Conference on Women was held, and she created "World Peace" to express her good wishes to the world. She also created "Winter Olympics Goddess" to pay tribute to the athletes who achieved great results at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

Squat down and sow the seeds of inheritance

Not only the pioneer of Jinshan Silk Carpet, but also the fighter and guardian of Jinshan Silk Carpet - Cheng Meihua, who is over seventy years old, has an unwavering determination.

In August 2022, it was a crucial moment for his work "The Magnificent Journey" to participate in the second Arts and Crafts Design Competition held in Nanjing. On the day before the award ceremony, Cheng Meihua had just finished an important defense in the downtown area of Shanghai. The next morning at 4am, she set off from home and walked for 30 minutes to catch the earliest bus at the bus station, then switched to taking the high-speed train to Nanjing. As soon as she arrived at the venue, she immediately became emotionally charged and had a clear mind, telling the visitors her design philosophy and creative story over and over again... In the end, her work won the highest award of the competition, the "Hundred Crane Golden Tripod Award", with the first place in the group.

Tang Kemei, the leader of the Chinese arts and crafts industry, did not originally know Cheng Meihua. Every year, as a judge, she sees Cheng Meihua's works in various competitions and is moved by the ultimate beauty of craftsmanship in his works. She first becomes a confidant, and then recognizes people. She said, "Cheng Meihua made her debut through her works and spoke through them."

Today, Cheng Meihua still records the grandeur of this era with her vigorous creativity and lyrical poetry on velvet tips.

In 2016, the weaving technique of Jinshan Silk Carpet was selected as a protection project for Shanghai's intangible cultural heritage, and Cheng Meihua became a inheritor of Shanghai's municipal intangible cultural heritage. In her rare years, she now spends almost half of her energy cultivating the inheritor of this intangible cultural heritage project.

Established in the 1980s, Jinshan Silk Carpet Factory boasts tall trees and mottled walls, exuding the flavor of time and precipitation everywhere. Someone suggested that Cheng Meihua paint the wall in bright colors, but Cheng Meihua couldn't bear it. However, since 2018, Cheng Meihua has transformed old factories and workshops into "intangible cultural heritage protection and inheritance bases" and "social research and learning practice education bases"... She also painted large machinery in vibrant orange to attract children's attention.

In order to make silk carpet art more approachable and conducive to learning and dissemination, she developed the "Digital Mobile Machine" in 2022, which miniaturized the traditional machine that was originally over 2 meters wide and high into an A4 poster size; She personally took the stage to give a "master lesson" and selflessly imparted the secret fingering techniques that the teacher had previously taught to the children who were listening to the lesson for the first time.

Under the leadership of Cheng Meihua, the once desolate old factory building is now filled with children's laughter. The arduous intangible cultural heritage skills repeatedly "squat down", sowing the seeds of inheritance into the hearts of children