Weaving and Needle

Xu Jia
Curator of 2016 Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art

Weaving

‘Weaving & We’ is the theme of 2016 Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art. For fiber art, it honors the craft of ‘weaving’; to the triennial exhibition of contemporary art, it strives to touch the chord of heart of the ‘we’.The theme inspires us to approach the issue of existence and perception through ‘weaving’ --- the most fundamental and common craft in fiber art. The ‘we’ here is an active subject rather than a passive medium. The architect Gottfried Semper once remarked, ‘in the beginning there was textile art.’ As the most basic technique for textile art, the craft of weaving has been moving forward along with the advancement of mankind. To weave, people had to work. The manual labor of weaving gave human beings the sense of existence. The development of weaving has given a testimony to the progress of mankind.

In today’s world, commercial products are industrialized. Digital images can be seen anywhere. The internet media has taken the dominance of our times. Against this backdrop, the development of the traditional ‘weaving’ has flipped to a new page. It embraces new assisting methods like digital weaving, new materials such as graphite, and new visual effects. Almost in all languages, the meaning of ‘weaving’ has already been beyond the traditional intertwining of warps and wefts. It now contains the complexity and interweaving of everything. And everything can be woven, be it object such as silk, linen, bamboo, rattan, hair, bodies, goods and buildings or abstract things like thoughts, sentiment, languages, words, identities and interests. Even sometimes the concrete objects may encounter the abstract things and the sparks of their interweaving can find their way in cultures, arts, production, lifestyles, places and histories.

But why has the meaning of ‘weaving’ extended so much? It is not just for its intertwining nature or the diversity of its subjects, but because it implies the cultural connectivity. We may find some clues by tracing back to the origin of the Chinese characters for ‘weaving’.

Erya [The Lietrary Expositor] is the first comprehensive Chinese dictionary in ancient China. In the dictionary, the word ‘weaving’ in Chinese is explained as using threads of silk to make textile. It also reads that ‘weaving is drawing’. The explanation gives us two ideas: one is that in China then, the subject of weaving was specified to silk threads only; the other is that for ancient Chinese, weaving was the same with drawing because both were constructing two-dimensional patterns using strips and threads with the only difference in tools.

Xu Shen from East Han dynasty wrote in his work Shuowen Jiezi [Analytical Dictionary of Characters] that ‘textile is the umbrella term for all kinds of cloths and silks. Cloths are made of threads of linen and silks are made of threads of silk. The craft of making cloths and silk is described as weaving. Weaving is the intertwining of warps and wefts.’ His explanation suggests that during his time, the subjects of weaving extended to all sorts of cloths and silks. The word ‘weaving’ included various forms as long as there was interlaced warps and wefts. But Xu Shen’s description of the Chinese character ‘weaving’ overlooked its association with drawing

Yet that was not the end of the story. The notes for another Chinese character 缋 in the Shuowen Jiezi indicate again the correlation between weaving and drawing. It reads that ‘ 缋 means the ends of cloths and silks. Another meaning of this character is drawing’. Later, Duan Yucai, a scholar of Qing dynasty annotated this remark, ‘the meaning of this character includes both cloths and silks. The Chinese expression ‘ 织余 ’ in this sentence refers to the tail part of a loom. While here it can be interpreted as the ends of cloths and silks since the character ‘ 缋 ’ contains the meaning of lost or missing. ‘ 织余 ’ now has another name --- ‘ 机头 ’ literally meaning the head part of a loom. ’ Duan continued his annotation, ‘Zheng Xuan ( 郑玄 ), the scholar of the Eastern Han dynasty believed that ‘ 缋 ’ is the right character for drawing; while ‘ 绘 ’ is the character for colorful embroideries.’ These have told us that the character ‘ 缋 ’back then referred to both the tail part of a loom and drawing. While the character ‘ 绘 ’meant both colorful embroideries and drawings, though today we only use the latter meaning of this character. There is another related Chinese character named ‘ 绣 ’. It means embroidery or embroider now, but it was about the colors for drawing then. Duan Yucai had annotation for this as well. As he commented, ‘people nowadays distinguish the meaning of‘ 绘 ’from that of ‘ 绣 ’. However, our ancestors used both characters to talk about the colors for drawing. For them, ‘ 缋 ’ was drawing while ‘ 绘 ’ was embroidery. So it is clear to see that in ancient China, knitting, drawing and embroidery were perceived as manual work that were interwoven or even could substitute each other.

What’s more interesting was that another Chinese character ‘ 文 ’ got involved in the melting pot ofcharacters. Scholar Sun Xingyan from Qing dynasty annotated the relation among  three Chinese characters:绘 , 文 , 绣 . As he wrote, ‘in his book Shiji [The Scribe's Records], Sima Qian mentioned that they rankedpatterns by a system of the sun, the moon and the  stars. The mountain and dragon patterns appeared only on the clothes of emperors, most senior officials or on the military flags. The algae and flame patterns were made for some other government officials. Both types of patterns were called ‘ 文 ’, meaning decorative patterns. The white ‘ 米 ’-shape pattern on the clothes of noble families was called ‘ 绣 ’. In the Shuowen Jiezi, ‘ 文 ’ represented the interweaving of threads and colors. Those interwoven threads and colors made up patterns. That explained the character ‘ 缋 ’. According to Shuowen Jiezi, ‘ 文 ’ horses equaled to ‘ 画 ’ horses which referred to the horses with polished hair in Zuo zhuan [Commentary of Zuo]. Then the character ‘ 文 ’ was the same as the character ‘ 画 ’. While ‘ 画 ’ referred to the patterns whose ranking was between mountains, dragons and algae, flames. The white ‘ 米 ’-shaped pattern and the common black and white strips and black and blue strips on formal dresses were embroidered on refined cambric cloths. They were all embroideries and in Chinese they were all ‘ 绣 ’. Therefore, back then, the Chinese character ‘ 绣 ’ bore the same meaning with today’s ‘ 文 ’.’

Apparently, literature, painting and embroidery have always been interwoven in the history of Chinese culture. Along with their own development, the three forms have been separated by cultural, arts and crafts gulfs even though they were once family

Needles and Admonishment

There are various patterns of weave: knit, crochet, tapestry and embroidery, etc. All of them share a common toolthat is needle. For instance, long bamboo needle is used for knitting clothes while embroidery needle works for embroidery. With needles, the manual labor of weaving began to shuttle back and forth in a three-dimensional world, leaping from the plain palette of warps and wefts. With needles, the strips and threads of weaving can be stretched in all directions and all manners. What the point of needle carries is not only the texture and vigor of the fabrics, but the painstaking care and warmth of the weavers that will last. In this sense, through the use of needle, ‘weaving’ is full of capacity to display the texture of skin, the meaning of life, and the landscape of culture.

We may get some ideas about the origin of ‘needle’ from the annotation of the Zhou Li ( 周礼 , Ritual of Zhou):

‘The character ‘ 箴 ’ (bearing the same meaning with the character ‘ 针 ’) was the tool used when making colorful embroideries. The annotation from another classical book in ancient China commentated that all works of art that were made by needle pricking were ‘ 绣 ’ (embroideries). In one ancient Chinese dictionary Guangya shigu [Explaining old words of expanded Erya], the noun form for ‘ 刺 ’(prick) was ‘ 针 ’(needle). Without needle, no embroideries could be done. That’s why embroidery is ‘ 刺绣 ’ in Chinese.’

Now we’ve learnt another Chinese character ‘ 箴 ’ from the words above. Based on the explanation inShuowen Jiezi, the original meaning of ‘ 箴 ’ was the needle used for making clothes. So ‘ 箴 ’ was the ancient style for the character ‘ 针 ’. Duan Yucai annotated, ‘thin bamboo needles were used to weave clothes and metal needle were for sewing clothes. So the character ‘ 鍼 ’ was explained as sewing. Needless to say, the character ‘ 箴 ’ had taken on the specific meaning of weaving clothes since the East Han dynasty. There are two parts in the character ‘ 箴 ’. The head part is its radical, suggesting its material is bamboo. The torso part is ‘ 咸 ’, indicating the sore sparked by the pricking of bamboo needle. So the original meaning of this character should be ‘the bamboo needle that will cause sore in your flesh when you are pricked by it’. While this meaning is closer to the needle used for acupuncture instead of the needle for sewing and knitting. The character ‘ 咸 ’ played as a warning of the potential physical sore. With the development of materials and functions, the bamboo needles were gradually replaced by metal ones. The character ‘ 箴 ’ became ‘ 鍼 ’ with the part of ‘ 咸 ’ remained, implying that the needle could always cause the prickle to flesh. However, in
today’s Chinese dictionaries, there is only one ancient Chinese character for the character ‘针’. That is the ‘鍼’.

The meaning of the Chinese character ‘ 箴 ’ has also figuratively extended to ‘admonish’ or ‘admonition’. When used as a verb, it means to strongly advise somebody not to do something. When used as a noun, it refers to an ancient Chinese writing style which usually used as a warning to someone about their behavior. Therefore, admonition can be understood as the words that may blow the mind like a needle that may prick the skin. With its warning nature, admonition can usually prevent people from inappropriate behaviors. Thus, the character ‘ 箴 ’ built its link with words and speeches. As the origin of this character, the Chinese character ‘ 针 ’ was connected with words naturally.

Interestingly enough, the English word ‘needle’ also contains several meanings as its Chinese counterpart does. When used as a noun, ‘needle’ is a small piece of steel for sewing with a point at one end and a hole for the thread on the other. When used as a verb, it refers to the manual labor of using needle to do embroidery and tapestry. The word also has an informal usage which means to deliberately annoy someone, especially by criticizing someone continuously. This implies that in English, when you ‘needle someone’, you are actually hurting their feelings with your mean words just like using a needle to prick their flesh. Therefore, the thin needles have been metaphorically taken as words both in English and Chinese. They signify the physical existence; they reinvigorate and wake up humanity; they cultivate and question the soul; and they are connected with the prophecies of future. The ‘saying of needles’ links the physical pricking feeling left by a needle with the psychological sting imposed by words. Perhaps this is the origin of the analogy that what needle to embroidery is what pen to writing.

Making a further comparison of the two characters, it is not difficult to find that ‘ 针 ’ and ‘ 箴 ’ assumed different culture significance. Since both of them could be used as verb or noun, they had taken on implications to different forms of arts. ‘ 针 ’with its meaning as sewing needles was related to embroidery. While ‘ 箴 ’ as the character for admonish became a calligraphy branch of inscription. This has cast lights into the gender difference behind the two forms of art: the field of embroidery was dominated by women while the words with rhythm belonged to the world of men. In this way, they go on two different tracks of history. ‘ 针 ’ is associated with handmade crafts such as tapestry and embroidery. They are often created to tell oral histories and folktales. But admonition is written down for recording official histories. Presumably, at its birth the Chinese character ‘ 箴 ’ involved two social roles. One is family (tapestry and embroidery), the other is society (admonish). With a more and more consolidated social development and people’s stereotyped thinking, the Chinese character ‘ 针 ’ for ‘needle’ gradually broke away from ‘ 箴 ’ and developed into a tool for specialized female and their weaving works. The word ‘needle’ in Chinese thus has been less commonly used to refer to acupuncture or admonishment. Instead, it has been more closely linked with embroidery, sewing and needle and thread. It’s natural that weaving and embroidery has gradually become feminine skills.

Needles and Women

There are beautiful and unique names for those female weavers who are the subjects of the ‘saying of needles’. We usually call them the weaving maid or weaving lady. Those who master the greatest skill among them are acclaimed as ‘the Goddess of Needle’.Chinese people have coined an umbrella word for spinning and weaving, embroidery and sewing: the
‘needlework’. Steel needles and silk threads are the essential elements of needlework. With magical artistic appeal endowed by the hands of weaving ladies, needles shuttle among silk threads to create charming works of art. These works display the combination of the ultimately soft threads and extremely unyielding needles. They are blessed with silk-like nobility and needle-like integrity. For those weaving ladies who are practicing needlework everyday, they are apt to be affected by such a wonderful combination and develop a disposition with both tenderness and integrity. That’s exactly the poetic nature of the weaving maids. These ladies are of a wide range of styles and match the diverse descriptions in ancient Chinese poems. Some of the weaving maids are quite sentimental and ‘are wistfully looking at the images of themselves mirrored on the surface of the lake’. Some are open-minded and free-minded like ‘a floating boat without a rope’. Some embrace the drawn-out melancholy like ‘a lonely wild goose flies across the sky, crying’. Some are so steady and sincere that their affections are ‘deeper than thousands feet water’. Some are acclaimed as staunch women with integrity that ‘their names will be enshrined in the books of history’. Some have a big heart and impress the world as ‘distinguished people in seclusion in the bamboo forests’. And some others boast attractive appearance and acute mind who ‘must stand out among the young ladies’. The poetic nature of tapestry and embroidery differs from that of the man-dominated painting. With patience, tranquility, calm, tenacity, style and solitude, it is a delicate, unbroken and long poet for women.

The needlework has traditionally been perceived as a basic skill for women. It was once the symbol of female virtues. Since the excellence in needlework not only symbolized a smart head and hand, but also suggested chastity, perseverance and tranquil mind, for any woman who was of ‘four virtues’(fidelity, physical charm, propriety in speech and efficiency in needlework) she must have a good command of needlework. Needles and threads took on a new symbolic meaning as a mirror of chaste ladies under the influence of a Confucian school of idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming Dynasties, especially in Ming and Qing Dynasties when the chastity of married women was fully accentuated. Women who were chaste and supported the family with their needlework were recorded in the histories of virtuous women in many local chronicles.

Those women of ‘saying of needles’ are not simply conventional chaste women with sophisticated needlework skills. They are more of artist, writer or even revolutionist given the cultural implications of ‘weaving’ and ‘needle’.

Take the Gu embroidery ( 顾绣 ) in Songjiang area as an example. The history of Gu embroidery dates back to late Ming dynasty when the embroidered pictures made by Gu family were acknowledged as the climax of that craft. Each and every renowned craftsman of Gu embroidery knew everything about poetry, literature, calligraphy and embroidery. These women with letters and artistic achievements were sincere friends with the literati during their times. No wonder the famous scholars and men of letters were happy to write prefaces, postscripts and poems for the Gu embroideries, unprecedentedly contributing to its high reputation. Another vivid example comes from the first existing theory book on embroidery --- the Xiu Pu [Profile of Embroidery] written by the weaving lady Ding Pei. The preface and postscript of the book revealed the social interactions among the young ladies with literature talents who were living in the south of Yangtze River. They exchanged letters and verses of poems. Traditional Chinese literati and well-born ladies appreciated each other via the exchange of verses of poems. For them as a common community of culture, that was a unique way to say thanks and open their heart to each other.

The most special and independent weaver in the Gu embroidery family should be the female member Han Ximeng. She was the first woman at that time who dared to keep her maiden name after getting married. It was indeed astonishing then that she left her maiden name instead of husband’s name as seals on her embroideries. Another pioneer Ding Pei, the author of Xiu Pu, was so reflective and innovative that she took bold steps to build on exquisite embroidery skills. Her book Xiu Pu mirrored the mindset of weaving ladies during the Late Qing dynasty. That group of ladies had developed the awareness of female liberation, gender equality, and women’s creativity.

In traditional Chinese culture, the needle and thread were ‘talking’ about the conventional female virtues and chastity in the first place. Then they evolved to ‘talk’ about the cultural accomplishment and creativity awareness of the nonconventional woman-predominated philosophy. However, this striking contradiction has found its way in the point of needle. It weaves fabrics into works of art. Meanwhile in the western world, the needle and thread recounted a women’s history of struggling. They have been fighting against patriarchy for liberating themselves.

The modern and contemporary arts in western countries have entered into a new development stage sincemodern times. In particular, the modern fiber art movement characterized by soft sculpture renovated the representation of fibers including silk, linen, yarn and palm fiber. Likewise, the traditional techniques such as knitting, weaving, knotting, embroidering, and binding definitely have been marked as experimental art and avant-garde art. They are applied to emboss works, or to make bigger, heavier and more conceptual works of art.

In the meantime, the development of women’s art was tiding along with the widespread feminine movements in western countries. Based on the philosophy of liberating women’s mind, the western women’s art advocated revolutionary ideas for women: to achieve self-salvation, to recognize women’s identity and to challenge oneself. While these were going on, some typically female artistic crafts were involved, such as knitting, weaving, knotting, embroidering, and binding. Though these were traditional techniques, they were weaving modern and contemporary elements into minds. Hence ‘weaving’ served as an instrument for women to rise to patriarchy. It also functioned as the most powerful weapon to break through the
confinement of traditional techniques because it provided women with a self-interrogation space.

Given the above, both the revolution of modern fiber art and the rise of women’s art are solid evidences that fiber art is drawing soaring attention. Quite a few artists now are attempting to make breakthrough from the traditional approaches. They architect the innovative ideas on the landscape of materials, techniques and women’s nature. As a result, the manual labor of ‘weaving’ has been diversified. The conventional fiber works are no longer restricted in looms or two dimensions. They have become three-dimensional works of art and story-tellers.

The ‘saying of needle’ has become a way to artistic creation as well. Moreover, it has no longer been bound by ‘weaving’. For example, in her video project, the Korean artist Kimsooja outlined the image of ‘a needle woman’. The woman wears a plain gown and a black cascade of hair. She is looking at the flow of people on the street with her back on the audience. She is standing still like a needle in a city’s hustle and bustle. The city may be a diversified and inclusive metropolitan such as Tokyo, Shanghai, Berlin, New York, Mexico City, Cairo, Lagos, and London. It also can be a city in a third world country where the issues of immigration and races are rampant, such as Havana, Patan, Rio, Sanaa, Jerusalem, and Ndjamena. In the video, the flesh and blood of the woman are interpreted into a ‘needle’ which is weaving through the magnificent textile of people coming and going. It is this needle that interlaces human with the society and culture. So the ‘needle’ speaks for ‘we’, and ‘we’ are the ‘needle’. Even a single word at that moment seems too much. That’s why the video is a silent one. The needle woman is standing quietly. She is not doing anything, but she is conveying way more messages. Among these messages, there are changes about the inner world of the artist -- from nervousness to devotion and to relief. There are also messages about the energy, various attention and feedbacks from the surrounding crowd of people. In this sense, the ‘needle’ in the video plays the role of an obvious but ambiguous tool. It is capable of both healing and hurting. It can stand on a specific physical spot, but it also can reach an abstract dimension. As the artist herself puts it, ‘Perhaps at that moment, I cast my ego away and walked away from the flow of people. I felt that the real world was a whole that would turn down any more modification or healing.’

A needle is probably as thin as a thread of hair. Thin and slight as it is, a needle makes it possible to interweave the shared memories and experience of women throughout the world. For those women, scenes with weaving as the background have been woven into their childhood memories: playing around grandma’s loom; sitting besides mom who was embroidering and reading stories under the same light; watching television with grandma when she was knitting; and badgering elder sister into sewing on a button. It’s safe to say that women polish up the needle and are radiant with the ‘saying of needles’. Needle is not what women are born for, but it gives women a new meaning of life.

In a word, the ‘saying of needles’ signifies a valuable inspiration from the theme ‘weaving & we’.

The Essence of Embroidered Painting

Xu Jia
Curator of 2016 Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art

    Embroidery is a very special branch of traditional Chinese handicrafts. It occurs not only in a workshop, but more commonly in a family environment. This ensures that the space for making embroidery is one of leisure providing a pure, free and quiet environment, yet paradoxically it also serves to limit the innovation and its development. As a genre of female needlework, embroidery has not been recognized by the art world for a very long time. There has been a perennial lack of theoretical interest in the art form and the research field. Generally speaking it has been ignored by generations of cultural historians in China. However, in addition to the practical, decorative and technical aspects, Chinese traditional embroidery has been able to maintain close connections to calligraphy and Chinese painting over the course of its development. This can be traced from the embroidered paintings in the Song Dynasty to Gu embroidery in the late Ming Dynasty. In fact, many female embroiderers were described as “needle sages”. A number of preserved, ancient embroidered painting pieces present the perfect combination of skills and painting techniques and with a high artistic research value. We can also discover an intimate connection between embroideries and paintings when we trace the source of Chinese traditional embroidery. The comparison between the origin of embroidery and painting reveals a positive link between these two kinds of art since ancient times. The name of the tool of embroidery - “needle” also implies the cultural connotation of embroidery.

Embroidered painting refers to painting-like embroidery works favored by literati today. With special skills
in embroidery, embroidered paintings show similar effect as paintings, or even supercede the real ones. They
can be viewed as paintings drawn by silk, emphasizing the scope and spirit of painting.

Embroidered painting matured in the Song Dynasty. THE Embroidered Painting Branch was established in THE imperial court in the Northern Song Dynasty. At that time, Emperor Huizong organized over 300 embroiderers to produce high-quality embroidered paintings. The development of embroidered painting reached its peak in the late Ming Dynasty with the unique weaving style of the distinguished family, Gu Embroidery School (Gu Embroidery for short) as a main representative, in Songjiang (Shanghai nowadays). Meanwhile, a masterpiece on the history of painting, History of Silent Poems (Wusheng shishi), written by Jiang Shaoshu, includes a section on embroidered painting. This meant that embroidered painting was recognized formally as a part of painting. It also meant that female artists of Gu Embroidery were recognized in a male-dominated society at that time. However, in the Qing Dynasty, embroidered paintings only existed as ornaments of Suchow Embroidery in regions south of the Yangtze River. This art started to decrease from the Song Dynasty and since that time has been produced and circulated as commercial merchandise.

The most important phenomenon of embroidered painting is the Gu Embroidery. The most significant reason why Gu Embroidery became a unique school in the history of embroidery, is that it was recognition in the history of painting due to its excellent combination with literati paintings. This combination embodies two aspects. One is that, all embroiderers of Gu Embroidery were well-educated ladies who used literati paintings as the drafts for their works. Since these embroiderers were able to paint the drafts themselves, the degree of creative freedom was enhanced. The female embroiderers were skilled in poetry, literature, calligraphy, painting and embroidery. They understood and realized the mix of painting and embroidery in the making process. The second, and more important aspect is that, a number of celebrities and litterateurs in the late Ming Dynasty contributed positively to the creation and appreciation of embroidered paintings.

Dong Qichang, Chen Zilong and many other famous figures once wrote poems or essays for the workscreated by Han Ximeng, a skilled embroiderer of Gu Embroidery.

These traits of Gu Embroidery combine with three distinctive features, namely the combination of painting and embroidery, exquisite skills, the use of high quality material in wonderful colors make it known nationwide and played an influential role in the embroidery field until the period of the Republic of China. Until 1936, Gu Embroidery still dominated the embroidery field in regions south of the Yangtze River. Representative artists of Gu Embroidery in its early stage were Ms Miu and Han Ximeng while in its late stage were Ms Gu (Zhang Lai’s wife) and Gu Lanyu.

Buddhism has been one of the main subjects of embroidery since ancient times. In the past, weaving Buddha was a religious activity the same as chanting sutras, praying and practicing Buddhism. This practice held a special meaning of “weaving blessings”. Every stitch could be seen as a blessing and the final work was an accumulation of merits and virtues. By worshiping these embroidery works, the person that the worshipper prayed for would be blessed. The main subject of Gu Embroidery in its early form was also Buddhism. The importance of embroidered painting not only lies in those female poets, painters and the presentation of their works, but also in a masterpiece that combs the cultural connotation behind embroidered paintings. It was a theoretical book named Xiu Pu [Profile of Embroidery] by Ding Pei published in Yunjian (Songjiang nowadays) in 1827. It was the first professional book concerning the history of embroidery that had been preserved until today. The book concludes theoretically by citing embroidered painting in a tone of an elegant lady who is proficient in poetry and painting. It does not include any particular type of stitch so it is not a technical handbook therefore it escapes the books that place a limit on skills. In her book, Ding compares embroidery with other categories of art, like poetry, painting and calligraphy. She, imitates the quality of painting by creatively dividing embroidered paintings into five categories (“Five Quality of Embroidered Painting”) and according to quality and style. There are six chapters in Ding Pei’s Xiu Pu: Choice of Place (environment and inner mind), Choice of Styles (subject and draft), Choice of Materials (materials and tools), Choice of Colors (pick up suitable colors), Process of Embroidery (requirements on skills) and Selection of Works (quality and style). There is no doubt Ding constructed the verbal world of embroidered painting from these six perspectives.

During the period of the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China, Gu Embroidery was almost unrecognized and valued due to the wave of commercialization. However, another new branch of embroidery appeared at the same time, inheriting and developing the tradition of embroidered painting in regions south of Yangtze River. A group of embroiderers emerged at the threshold of a new historical period and served as a link between the past and the present. The first was the emulational embroidery created by Shen Shou. This was followed by a number of female schools in regions south of Yangtze River. It had famous graduates like Yang Shouyu, the creator of crewel embroidery, Song Jinling, a disciple of Shen Shou, and Jin Jingfen, an embroidery master in the new period. They absorbed western concepts, theories and skills and were bold in innovation. Thus, their styles were different from the former embroidered paintings that pursued traditional aesthetics and vivid artistic conceptions of the Song and Yuan dynasties.

In the late Ming Dynasty, Zhenhu, the so-called “hometown of embroidery” belonged to Suzhou Prefecture, the most economically developed area in regions south of Yangtze River. At that time, almost every woman in the villages in Suzhou Prefecture produced embroidery works in order to economically support the family. Currently, there is a new generation of female embroiderers in Zhenhu who inherit embroidered paintings of Gu Embroidery. They have solid foundations In painting and are full of creativity and courage. In this topic, I mainly focus on the Liang Xuefang Embroidery Studio, the only embroidery workshop in Zhenhu area that cooperates with the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University. Liang Xuefang, who established the studio some twenty years ago, was once a visiting scholar in the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University. She majors in fiber art and has taken part in foreign exhibitions for many times. Her mother, Ma Huirong, has been engaged in embroidery for over sixty years works in the studio every day from morning to night and become a famous figure in Zhenhu. The works created by these two generations can be deemed as collisions between traditional and modern embroidery works. We can still vaguely see the signs of Gu Embroidery. I do hope that they rejuvenate the art of embroidered painting.

This thematic exhibition will display the history and the present of “embroidered painting”, an art field that was once as exquisite as painting, in three parts. The first part is Illustrated Embroidered Painting. By tracing the historical origin of embroidery and painting, needle and proverbs, and by collecting and comparing the biographies of ancient women who were both good at painting and embroidery, this part will take Suzhou embroidery, one of the symbols of traditional embroidery in the Jiangnan region, as the main subject, and focus on Gu embroidery and Xiu Pu written by Ding Pei, showing the “art” behind embroidered paintings with images and texts. The second part is Mother-Daughter Embroidered Painting, which exhibits works of Ma Huirong and Liang Xuefang, two well-known female embroiderers from Zhenhu, today’s Suzhou embroidery town. The third part is Embroidery Tools in Workshops. This part mainly exhibits several tools, materials and pieces of embroidery in Zhenhu area. These seemingly ordinary things from embroidery workshops vividly narrate joys of boudoirs behind creation as well as poetic enjoyment and interests of women.

Embroidery is youth, embroidery is life

—What Embroidering and Embroidery Are to Me

Liang Xuefang

I was born in 1965 in Zhenhu of Suzhou, a land well known for silk and the art of embroidery, where the latter was practiced by generations of women, and embroidery hoops and frames would be regarded as necessary dowries.

I can still recall the moments in my childhood when my mother was “making a living” - - this is how people in Suzhou call embroidering - - by the light of a kerosene lamp of paper shade. The little girl splitting threads and threading needles for my mom was married later with a set of red painted embroidery hoop and frame prepared by my mom as one of her dowries and has become a granny who have to put on a pair of reading glasses to do needlework. After decades doing embroidery, I have acquired an understanding of the “making a living” that may not be shared by many. To me, embroidering 40 years ago represented a way to promote feminine virtues, 30 years ago a necessary means of livelihood, 20 years ago purely practice of the handcraft, and 10 years ago creation of an artistic media for expressing emotions. Today, I have discovered in the practice life, rhythm of life, and philosophy of being. 

Nowadays, I have been increasingly coming to a realization that embroidering is a process of self-cultivation, physically and mentally closely connected with the embroiderer, which has been perfectly exemplified by my mother. Over the years, in her late seventies, she has been demonstrating stitch after stitch what an elegant and leisurely activity embroidering can be, in my studio at Xiuguan Street, with visitors standing outside the window almost every day observing her working on silk pieces. Responding to those who exclaim “but it’s so wearing”, my mother always says, in Suzhou dialect, “Nothing in the world can be more pleasurable than embroidering”. It used to be a luxury that only princesses and gentlewomen could afford to enjoy of toying with embroidery while appreciating melodic Suzhou Pingtan, a performance art of musical storytelling. Whether embroidering is exhausting or not is quite determined by the needleworkers’ moods and attitudes towards the practice. If one sees it as a lifestyle where one may obtain self-refining, one will naturally find in it calm pleasure, instead of a feeling of overwhelming weariness induced by the necessity of the activity for the sake of livelihood. As one of mom’s catchphrase goes, “We come to cherish our life only after inevitability of death truly dawned on us.” Weariness and anxiety won’t haunt us so long as we can keep our inner peace. When she is stitching, mom sits upright and breathes in peace, in which way she won’t get tired even after a dozen of undisturbed hours on the silk pieces because she work with her heart and to the rhythm of her being. Infused with her beings, Mom’s artworks seem to be living, breathing and pulsing at ease.

After years of experience in and pondering on embroidering, I become more and more confident of the belief that artworks instilled with the emotions life and beings of people giving their hearts and souls to them can outlive their creators and continue to tell the stories they are supposed to convey. People who have them in their collections, indirectly get hold of the moments and parts of the craftspersons’ lives and beings as well.