In front of the Xianmian sculpture in Huang Daopo's hometown, a "warp cloth" activity attracted everyone's attention. Warp coils and carts of different colors are lined up on the long stone road, and a group of hand-looms dressed in homespun clothes carry warp loops and threads back and forth between several flower stands to "run the line".
"Cloth of warp" to show teaching activities.
The weaver carried the warp circle and the thread to shuttle between several flower stands to "run the line".
Such scenes were a common sight in the suburbs of Shanghai decades ago, but they are now hard to find. Recently, the 90-year-old mother surnamed Li from Fengxian took her three daughters and Yang Meifang, a hand-loom artist, and Wang Meifang, Lin Xiumei, the intangible cultural heritage inheritors of Wunijing Cotton Textile Skills City and the district-level intangible cultural heritage, and the students of the youth inheritance class, presented a unique cotton textile craft "warp cloth" teaching in the beautiful Jiangnan courtyard of Huangdaopo Memorial Park.
The process of traditional hand-woven cotton cloth in the south of the Yangtze River is extremely complex, and there are 72 processes of large and small such as ginning, elastic flower, cotton wool, spinning, threading, falling line, flower pattern, warp cloth, breaking into the thread, digging heald, bolting machine, weaving, machine, repairing cloth, etc. On the wall of the northeast corner of the park of the Huang Daopo Memorial Hall, there is engraved the "Imperial Theme Cotton Map" compiled and painted by Fang Chengguan, the governor of Zhili in the Qing Dynasty, which completely depicts a complete set of maps from cotton planting, management to weaving, weaving and dyeing, and cloth. Among them, warp cloth is one of the most important processes in the weaving process.
The record of the "warp cloth" in the Imperial Theme Cotton Map.
"Warp cloth" means to arrange cotton threads and arrange warp threads. The warp cloth needs long and flat land, and the warp coils and warp cars of different colors are placed in turn in order, and the corresponding flower stands are placed at a fixed distance to run the line and hang the line. The cotton thread on the warp ring weighs more than a dozen catties, and it requires a lot of skill to complete the threading and shelf.
Weaver threading on site.
In the suburbs of Shanghai in the old days, every household spun yarn and weaved cloth. The warp cloth is the most important process that requires collective cooperation in the whole set of procedures, which can be said to be the cooperation of the whole village. According to the eldest sister of the Li family, the cloth is the big day of the whole village, if which family wants to warp the cloth, they will often tacitly form a team, the weaving experts claim each link early, from the design of the weaving pattern, arrangement, installation of the bobbin, threading, running line, warp, disc cloth and then to the reed, cloth machine, more than ten processes, it takes nearly a day, and now the weaving lady who can complete the full set of processes is very few. However, although the process of cloth is difficult, it is also a carnival of the group, with neighbors, the elderly and children playing together, laughing and singing, which has become a warm scenery in the collective life and memory of the village.
The weaver carried the warp circle and the thread to shuttle between several flower stands to "run the line".
At the event, the demonstration of the "warp cloth" of this collective relay seemed to bring people back to the old rural time. The crowd was also infected by the dedicated work of the weavers and the charm of traditional hand-weaving. Although we don't know each other, we quickly and tacitly combine together, some sort out the coils, some go into battle to arrange the line, some participate in the running line, and relay each node during the coiling line, as if reproducing the grand scene of the rural collective warp weaving, forming a community to find urban memory and skills.
On-site tourists** experience "warp cloth".
Now that Shanghai has entered a highly urbanized process, Xuhui has already become a mature business district, and it is of great significance to hold this prayer cloth event in front of the Xianmian sculpture in Huang Daopo's hometown. Fang Yun, the planner of the event, the person in charge of the intangible cultural heritage theory and application innovation base of Shanghai Vocational College of Arts and Crafts, and the doctor of folklore, explained: "The protection of traditional cotton textile skills in the context of high urbanization is extremely challenging. ”
Fang Yun also mentioned that the next link after the warp will be the reed and the drawing-in, and the weaving can start after getting on the loom. Next, the intangible cultural heritage inheritors will also carry out teaching and performances such as reeding and weaving in the national intangible cultural heritage Wunijing cotton textile skills inheritance base, forming a complete set of cotton textile skills display, "allowing urban groups to approach Huang Daopo and the living cotton textile intangible cultural heritage".
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