Jan 6th Meeting

Meeting starts at 12:30 pm 

Chinese Paper Cutting  Art  and the  Artist Lucy (Ping Liu)

  Chinese Paper Cuts also called Scissor-cuts (jian zhi), it is a type of traditional folk artwork with rich local flavor popularized by numerous people. Chinese Paper cutting started during the period of the Han Dynasty, about 1800 years ago, after paper was invented in China. Starting from 14th century this art was spread to the other parts of the world. Artists developed the paper cutting art while merging with the local culture.

In the ancient times, the art pieces were made to decorate home windows and doors for a happy Chinese New Year & for a good new future.  One of the most popular paper cutting schemes is the 12 Chinese Zodiac, is a scheme that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes.

 In modern China, the hand cut paper art is also used as one of the valuable gifts for the important events. Chinese governors always choose Chinese hand cut paper art work as one of the gifts when they visit the other countries. It symbolizes great perspective wishes and good future. Each of the individual cutting pieces is created over several hours of very intricate hand cutting with scissors from a single sheet of paper. All parts of the design interconnect. Due to the handcrafted nature of this art, each piece may have subtle differences. No two pieces are exactly the same. These are "One of a Kind" Unique Artwork, NOT "mass produced" or cut by modern laser techniques.  Original Paper Artwork Pieces Have Been Known to Considerably Appreciate in Value Over time. People also frame them and hang them on the home or office walls. Smaller pieces are always put on the tables, desks or book shelves as beautiful decorating pictures.

About the artist:

Lucy (Ping Liu) is a Chinese Paper cutting artist. She started learning this art when she was 6 years old. She has been creating and designing this art work for many years. She is also a paper cutting art teacher.  Her art work has been exhibited in many galleries and libraries in the United States, and has received critically acclaimed reviews & her very intricate style of cutting is highly recognized. She is also a member of Chinese Fine Art Society in the United States. Her greatest motivation is that she has been very blessed in doing what she loves and loving what she does. She has many dedicate paper cutting artworks. She will demonstrate and cut a very vivid Chinese Dragon in less than 20 minutes, which even to an artist, painting or drawing this dragon within this short time is a big challenge. She also will teach us to cut a snake for the year of snake for Chinese New Year 2013 celebration!

You can see her work on exhibit at the Woodridge Public Library throughout the month of January.