Coincidence or fate?
The combination of Chinese “Jian-zhi 剪纸” and Swiss Découpage that gave life to my art.
Read till the end and find out which FIVE local icons NewBernians have voted to be featured!
This story began with MumFest 2021. MumFest - born in New Bern, a small town on the coast of Eastern North Carolina; first as SwissBear Festival but soon found its essence to capture people’s attention - Chrysanthemum, has been going strong for the past forty-some years (Most of the town’s original settlers were from from the Swiss city of Bern, hence the name here, New Bern) .
Every year, an art show/contest accompanies the festivities in the fall. It features works themed around chrysanthemum and leaves the rest to one’s artistic interpretation. I decided to partake, and in this particular piece of art, I wanted to depict a silhouette of a bear (the city’s emblem also my daughters favorite animal) covered in various kinds of Chrysanthemum flowers, especially some unique asian varieties that has been my grandmother’s favorites over the years.
I got to work, and it wasn’t without fail. My fur babies at home has decided to use the first draft of the work as a scratchboard. So I turned to my trusty stylus and carried on.
To say I was proud of how it turned out was an understatement.
All the nights (after I put my daughter to bed) spent fixating over the fine details was worth it. And with the help of my trusty partner Image Monster, I was able to bring my realized vision to Craven County Bank of Arts in downtown New Bern, to enter the show. I trusted it with the lovely Dara Morgan, the director of the gallery, and proceeded to admire all the other beautiful artworks. They were all so beautiful and unique and made with love. Suffice to say, my artwork definitely has a very different style, a style that I wasn’t sure would be appreciated or popular in other viewers’ eyes.
Imagine my surprise when I got the call about winning the contest two weeks later! Not only did I get a little prize money which afforded many trips to Bear City Fudge Company with my family, I also agreed for Swiss Bear, organizer of MumFest, to use this particular image as the logo for MumFest 2022.
Fast forward a year later, the town is buzzing with excitement for a break from this heat once October comes, and MumFest 2022. Every time I thread the streets of downtown, I can almost see the beautiful lampposts flying flags and signs covered with my art.
With promotion of MumFest intensify and my art was introduced to the public, more and more people are interested in learning how this piece came to be, hence what prompted this article.
You see, I mentioned Bern, where the settlers came from; I wanted to learn more about it. A simple search online brought about so much information, but one thing caught my eye.
I couldn’t believe I didn’t know about this.
This familiar-looking folk art known as decoupage (or Scherenschnitte if you are from the otherside of the alps, according to this article). Why is it familiar to me? Because this is what I grew up with.
I remember learning how to make simple forms of jian-zhi in arts and crafts classes growing up, albeit, I have consistently been very bad at any kind of craft. I remember how visually striking it was, and it is apparent how much of an impact it has made on me. Incredible craftswomen kept the tradition alive by producing awe-inspiring work recognized as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO till this day. And every year we use Jian-zhi to decorate our walls and windows to welcome the Chinese New Year, you can usually find them in your local Chinese grocers around end of year.
Honestly, would you call this fate, or coincidence? The place I was born and raised shares such an incredible cultural connection with the place I am currently resting my wings.
Ever since this revelation, I have had an unstoppable drive to produce another piece of art that brings all of these things together, featuring more elements of significance of this town and a complete bear silhouette. But life with a toddler doesn’t leave much room to do in-depth studies of a place with such rich culture and history, so my knowledge of this town is still limited. So my dear friends, the people who live here and the ones who kindly visited, this is where you come in, what are some of these the you would like to see featured in my next piece?
Now let the drawing begin!
This traditional craft beloved by people from my hometown for over a thousand (and a few hundreds, but who’s counting) years which has inspired my love for monochrome line art, has a distant relative that is the origin of where I reside now, halfway across the world, and then some!
- Union Point Park Duck Beach
- Tryon Palace
- Original Pepsi Store
- Drawbridge
- Crane Fountain