Wang Guifeng

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Wang Guifeng, Female, Han, from Yuyao, Zhejiang, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-100). The tradition is documented in Yuyao, Zhejiang. Within the regional tradition and school record of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship in Yuyao, Zhejiang: The production areas of Yuyao homespun are concentrated in the villages north and south of the Yao River; formerly part of the Yue region of Shaoxing, it is thus called Yue cloth. The northern-Yao area kept up "every household spinning and weaving, looms sounding in every village" right up until the Reform and Opening-up. The one who truly preserved this craft intact is the Wang Guifeng family homespun workshop in Langhai Village, Xiaocao'e Town. She learned weaving from her mother at age 15 and can make split-bamboo-braid cloth, square-raw cloth, twill cloth, four-corner cloth, and hollow-cross cloth, among others; on a single bolt she can weave more than twenty patterns from six color combinations, and she preserves the main implements—a wooden loom and a small rocking wheel—as well as more than forty kinds of homespun made over the decades. Starting in 2009 she has run training classes at the workshop, teaching nearly a thousand people, while the rest of the folk workshops in the area have all but disappeared. Yuyao was once a major cotton base of the nation; Xu Guangqi's Ming-dynasty Complete Treatise on Agricultural Administration states that "Zhejiang cotton comes from Yuyao," and during the Republic of China period Zhejiang cotton was also called "Yaohua" (Yao cotton). Before the Southern Song, Yuyao homespun used hemp and kudzu as raw materials; the Book of the Later Han records that Yuyao homespun (Yue cloth) was a tribute item of the Eastern Han.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnicity, born in September 1936 in Yuyao City, Zhejiang Province. A national representative bearer of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship (Yuyao Homespun Cloth Making Craftsmanship), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. A Yuyao homespun cloth making technician. She began learning weaving from her mother at the age of 15 and became a well-known local expert in cloth weaving. She can make miebian cloth, fangsheng cloth, twill cloth, sijiao cloth, and hollow cross cloth, and can weave more than twenty patterns in six color combinations on a single bolt of cloth. She has preserved major production tools such as a wooden loom and a small spinning wheel, as well as more than forty kinds of homespun cloth made over several decades. Since 2009, she has held training classes in homespun cloth making techniques every year at the Wang Guifeng Homespun Cloth Workshop, a transmission base, training nearly one thousand people. Within the documented technical tradition of Traditional Cotton Textile Craftsmanship in Yuyao, Zhejiang: Since the Southern Song, Yuyao homespun has used cotton as its main raw material, and is renowned nationwide for its long history, fine craftsmanship, rich variety of patterns, practical beauty, and wide range of uses. Yuyao formerly belonged to the Yue region of Shaoxing (Kuaiji), so Yuyao homespun is also historically known as "Yue cloth." Yuyao has long had a homespun tradition; the Yuyao Liucang Gazetteer records that "in the late Ming and early Qing, plain cloth was favored in dress—commoners, rich or poor, all wore coarse cloth, and even the nobility did not adorn themselves lavishly." In the past, Yuyao farm girls learned weaving from childhood, and the quality of one's skill was an important measure of whether a girl was clever and deft. Yuyao homespun comes in a great variety of styles and types; its traditional making process is complex, divided into more than ten steps—cotton processing, spinning, yarn adjusting, dyeing, sizing, and warping—and over fifty process steps, requiring more than twenty kinds of tools. Until the Reform and Opening-up, in the northern-Yao countryside "every household spun yarn and wove cloth, and the sound of looms could be heard in every village." After the Reform and Opening-up, the traditional workshops gradually declined. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archived Process-Step Records": Yuyao homespun comes in a great variety of styles and types; its traditional making process is complex, divided into more than ten steps—cotton processing, spinning, yarn adjusting, dyeing, sizing, and warping—and over fifty process steps, requiring more than twenty kinds of tools.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In October 2008, she was named among the first batch of outstanding folk literature and art talents of Zhejiang Province.

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. Wang Guifeng · National Representative Bearer Archive