Jiang Yunhua

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Jiang Yunhua, Female, Han, from Pujiang, Zhejiang, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Wheat-straw Collage (Ⅶ-69). The tradition is documented in Pujiang, Zhejiang. Within the regional tradition and school record of Wheat-straw Collage in Pujiang, Zhejiang: Pujiang wheat stalk appliqué has the townships of Puyang, Huangzhai, Zhengzhai, and others in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, as its main areas of circulation. In its early period, it was mostly made by rural women themselves using wheat stalks gathered after the summer harvest, to decorate woven wheat stalk articles such as round fans and straw hats; it gradually turned to hanging screens, table screens, and other furnishings. It uses local wheat stalks as its raw material and requires more than twenty process steps, including soaking, smoking, steaming, bleaching, splitting, scraping, and dyeing, with refined material selection and fine workmanship in making it. Jiang Yunhua once served as designer and technical adviser for wheat stalk appliqué at two local companies, and founded the Pujiang Folk Craft Museum; her Hundred Pigeons was collected by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. Since the Qing dynasty, wheat stalk appliqué has become an ornamental decorative art, mostly used as a gift at festive events such as weddings, birthdays, longevity celebrations, shop openings, and moving into new homes.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in September 1942 in Pujiang county, Zhejiang Province. A senior arts and crafts artist and a master of arts and crafts of Zhejiang Province. She learned the craft from her mother in childhood and later studied under Wang Guoying and Wu Caixia. She served as designer and technical adviser for wheat-straw collage at two local companies and founded the Pujiang Folk Craft Museum. Her skills are consummate and her touch delicate; her natural-colour, polychrome and ink-style wheat-straw collages possess a distinct regional character. She is committed to transmitting the craft, teaching her sons, her daughters-in-law and her students, establishing transmission bases in a number of schools and instructing more than ten teachers. Within the documented technical tradition of Wheat-straw Collage in Pujiang, Zhejiang: Wheat stalk appliqué is a folk decorative art that uses wheat stalks as its raw material, mainly popular in the Pujiang region of Zhejiang Province. In former times, Pujiang wheat stalk appliqué was used as a substitute for embroidery in the decoration of woven wheat stalk articles such as round fans and straw hats, and it gradually developed into the decoration of furnishings such as hanging screens and table screens. Pujiang wheat stalk appliqué involves more than twenty process steps, including soaking, smoking, steaming, bleaching, splitting, scraping, and dyeing; in making it, material selection is refined and the workmanship fine, presenting distinctive local characteristics. To this day, the technique of Pujiang wheat stalk appliqué has matured considerably; while preserving the natural luster and texture of wheat stalks, it draws on other artistic techniques to continuously strengthen its own expressiveness, and its products display both the plain style of folk art and the exquisite qualities of elegant art. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archival Record of Process Steps": Pujiang wheat stalk appliqué involves more than twenty process steps, including soaking, smoking, steaming, bleaching, splitting, scraping, and dyeing; in making it, material selection is refined and the workmanship fine, presenting distinctive local characteristics. "The twenty-odd preparatory processes": The straw must be soaked, fumigated, steamed, bleached, split, scraped and dyed before it yields flat, supple and controllable strips. "From fans and hats to hanging panels": Once a substitute for embroidery on straw fans and hats, the craft moved to hanging and table screens, its purpose shifting from utility to display. "Natural, coloured and ink-wash straw work": Three types by Jiang Yunhua: the natural sort keeps the straw's own sheen and grain, while the coloured and ink-wash sorts amplify expression through dye and ink.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Wheat-straw Collage, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Works including Along the River During the Qingming Festival have been exhibited and won awards, and One Hundred Doves was collected by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. She compiled Jiang Yunhua's Wheat-Straw Paintings, contributed to the Zhejiang volume of the Complete Works of Chinese Arts and Crafts and to several primary and secondary school textbooks, and her middle-school labour-technique textbook Paper-cutting, Collage and Home Economics won first prize for outstanding textbooks from the State Education Commission.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Jiang Yunhua · National Representative Bearer Archive