Zhou Jiming

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He studied traditional printing and dyeing under Master Wu Bingrong and gained a complete command of the traditional blue calico process. Within the regional tradition and school record of Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craftsmanship in Tongxiang, Zhejiang: The Tongxiang blue calico printing and dyeing technique is distributed mainly in the central towns of Chongfu, Shimen, Wuzhen and Wutong in Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province, and in more than twenty surrounding rural market towns. Tongxiang blue calico is a traditional clothing fabric of the Jiangnan water region; in Tongxiang it is also widely used for quilt covers, mosquito nets and wrapping cloths. Blue calico, also known as “yaoban bu” and “kaohua bu”, is a traditional folk dyeing and finishing craft in which patterns are resist-dyed onto natural white greige cloth by a physical resist-printing method. The Tongxiang Municipal Culture Centre (Tongxiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Centre) is the protecting unit for the project. According to the town gazetteers of Tongxiang, several dozen printing and dyeing workshops were opened during the late Qing and early Republican period. The best known of these were Shimen Fengtongyu, founded in 1841 by Feng Xiaokang, grandfather of Feng Zikai, and dyeing houses such as Lanmaofeng, established by the Lan family of Chongfu during the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty. After the 1950s, the units that still persisted in blue calico production locally included a few individual hand printing and dyeing workshops such as Chongfu Lanmaofeng and Xieda.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

He is a Han Chinese man, born in June 1951, a native of Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province. National representative bearer of Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craftsmanship, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. A Master of Arts and Crafts of Zhejiang Province. He entered the Tongxiang Arts and Crafts Printing and Dyeing Factory in 1979 and served as its director from 1985. Through practice he has organically united the practical and artistic qualities of blue calico, constantly innovating and improving production techniques, and has inherited and developed the distinctive artistic style of Tongxiang blue calico. He trains apprentices in the traditional printing and dyeing craft. Representative works include the blue calico hanging scrolls Feng Zikai Cartoons and Along the River During the Qingming Festival, the tablecloths Hundred Chrysanthemums and Wealth, Honour and Peace, and the carpet Fortune, Heaven and Longevity. Within the documented technical tradition of Blue Calico Printing and Dyeing Craftsmanship in Tongxiang, Zhejiang: Blue calico is also known as “yaoban bu” (medicine-spotted cloth) and “kaohua bu” (stencil-printed cloth). The blue calico printing and dyeing technique is a traditional folk dyeing and finishing craft in which patterns are resist-dyed onto natural white greige cloth by means of a physical resist-printing method. The Tongxiang blue calico printing and dyeing technique is distributed mainly in the central towns of Chongfu, Shimen, Wuzhen and Wutong in Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province, and in more than twenty surrounding rural market towns. Tongxiang blue calico is a traditional clothing fabric of the Jiangnan water region; in Tongxiang it is also widely used in daily life for quilt covers, mosquito nets and wrapping cloths. The complete printing and dyeing process of blue calico comprises design, block carving, sizing, dip-dyeing, paste scraping, rinsing, sun-drying and finishing. The motifs of Tongxiang blue calico are extremely rich and are arranged in free, varied compositions with a distinctly Jiangnan style. The motifs draw on literary allusions and similes to convey feeling and aspiration — plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, or bees and butterflies, wild geese and orioles, or the zither, chess, calligraphy and painting — brimming with charm and delight. The most typical composition is the “cluster flower” (tuanhua), commonly called the “ball flower” (piqiu hua), which follows the layout rules known as “yaoyao”, “yaoer” and “yaosan”. Within the sharply contrasting blue-and-white patterns are irregular grey, dry cracklines — “ice cracks” — that are natural and beautiful, and are hailed as “the soul of hand printing and dyeing”. The technique belongs to the physical resist-printing family. Drawing, block carving and dyeing are technically demanding and are carried out entirely by hand, using indigo as the dye. The resulting cloth withstands washing and sunlight, its colour is stable, and the pattern grows brighter with each washing. The blue calico printing and dyeing technique has a long history and has spread widely. According to the Wuzhen Town Gazetteer: “The fabrics dyed in the dyehouses of our town are all local goods, such as silk noil cloth, bolts of cloth and similar materials.” Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archival Record of Process Steps": The complete printing and dyeing process of blue calico comprises design, block carving, sizing, dip-dyeing, paste scraping, rinsing, sun-drying and finishing.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

His works have been shown many times in international exchange exhibitions and have won national awards.

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. Zhou Jiming · National Representative Bearer Archive