An ardent female artist

Cui Xin is a Beijing silk figurine artist who has been engaged in the craft for more than 20 years. The subjects of her works are mainly maidens from royal courts, talented scholars and beautiful women (often heroes and heroines from traditional Chinese romances), as well as gods and Buddha. Cui Xin also molds modern figurines, representing people from ethnic minorities and famous foreigners.

Physically disabled due to infantile paralysis at the age of two, Cui was unable to pursue her schooling, but she continued her hobby of making silk figurines. Later, Cui mastered the procedure when she worked in a factory that produced artistic human figurines.

Cui loves the craft of silk figurines very much and spends most of her time making them. Usually, it takes her a long time to complete the head of just one figurine.

The eyes are the most important part of the craft, which give the figurines their lifelike appeal. After more than 20 years of practice and study, Cui categorizes the eyes of silk figurines into several categories: smiling eyes, gazing eyes, pretty eyes, eyes with a "martial spirit," eyes with tears in them, and so on, to vividly portray the different characters of various figures. After drawing the eyes, ears, mouth, nose and body of a figurine, Cui then maps out the hair.

The hair of a silk figurine is made of very thin threads, which should be evenly covered on the mold of its head. The next step is to arrange the hair into a bun.

Upon completing the head, Cui makes the bones, muscles and skin. Iron wire is used to make the prayer bones; iron wire covered with antiseptic cotton is used to make muscles; and gauze is used to shape the female body. Similar procedures are employed to make the hands, which require the most skill. It usually takes two to three days to complete a very thin finger. After all figurine parts are complete, they are joined together to form a rudiment. Then, silk is used to make clothes for the figurine. To obtain the best results, Cui insists on personally selecting the cloth for each silk figurine.

There are dozens of procedures involved in making a silk figurine. Even the procedure of making accessories also calls on a lot of patience and skill. The accessories should be appropriate and correspond to the size of each figurine. What's more, the decorations and arrangement of accessories also demand much expertise. On the one hand, the artist should possess an artistic perception of how to process the accessories; on the other, she or he has to study the historical background of each figure being molded.

Carefully observing Cui's works, one will find that each figurine bears some similarity to the artist in terms of facial features and expressions, which may well be the indissoluble bond forged between the artist and silk figurines. It usually takes Cui one to two months to make a single silk figurine, every detail conveying Cui's love for Beijing silk figurines.