New lease of life for traditional straw art
Print Edition
EDITOR’S note:
HANDICRAFT arts are slowly dying in the era of bustling mega-cities. People are too busy or too disinterested to keep alive the skills of their forebears. As part of this year’s Shanghai Citizens Art Festival, a competition was held to select 100 professional and amateur artisans who are “Top Talents in Craftsmanship.” This is the third in a series of profiles of some of the winners – people striving to keep old skills alive for future generations.
STRAW, in the hands of 33-year-old Yao Yijia, is transformed far beyond agricultural feedstock.
It becomes art.
The former university fashion-design major combines straw and embroidery to create pieces of art praised by local artisans and coveted by collectors.
“There were times when I thought I should work for a salary like everyone else,” she said, “but my parents always advised me never to make decisions that I would regret later in my life.”
For Yao, straw art was love at first sight when she was still in high school and saw a news story about artists working with the dried stalks of cereal crops.
Her parents encouraged that interest. Her father brought home the first bunch of stalks for her to try.
Yao slits the 5-millimeter diameter along its length, scrapes off the inner fiber and presses the stalk flat. Then it is cut by hand into hair-like pieces.
“Many artisans dye the straw top to create different colors for their works, but I tend to prefer their natural shades,” Yao said. “A straw with dark spots on it, for example, would be perfect for the wings of an eagle.”
Nature figures prominently in traditional Chinese straw art.
“I often go to the zoo to observe the animals,” she said. “And I also study the works of masters. But in the end, an artist needs to develop her own unique style.”
Yao’s style was inspired by the application of embroidery in fashion. And not just any embroidery. After graduating from university, Yao spent two years in Suzhou studying the classic embroidery style of that city.
“In using straw, you need to be mindful of every breath, lest a piece be blown away,” she said. “Likewise in embroidery, you need to concentrate or risk splitting the thin silk threads.”
Her skill is so accomplished that it’s hard to distinguish what is straw and what is embroidery in her works.
Yao said she usually stitches backgrounds or bits of nature like grassland, sea waves or cliffs in thread because those elements require colors not available in natural straw.
“Straws are a harder surface to embroider on, and you need to consider carefully which method of stitching to use before you start,” she said.
A work of 30 centimeters by 40 centimeters takes Yao about two months to complete. She said she averages three to four straw-embroidery artworks a year. They are seldom sold because she doesn’t want to drain the portfolio used for personal exhibitions.
Yao’s choice of an artistic career is supported by her family, but others around her have questioned its wisdom.
“Some people tell me that handicrafts are something for only disabled people to do,” said Yao.
Still, she is committed to staying on the road less traveled, hoping to help popularize straw-embroidery. For two years, Yao has received grants to teach art classes to residents and students in Zhenru Town, where she lives in Putuo District.
“The younger generation of artisans is eager to share our skills because we believe that is the only way to keep alive traditional art forms in the contemporary world,” she said.
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