There are a lot of arts and crafts forms I'd like to learn to master some day, or at least try them out with some professional guidance. Chinese paper cutting is definitely one of those I'd like to learn more than others, but I suspect it's something that takes years and years of practice, with an endless amount of patience and precision. The two latter I've got sometimes, but not often enough nowadays it seems. I like doing at least two things at the same time in order not to get too restless, unless I'm too tired to do much of anything at all but watch tv or dvd's.
Chinese paper cutting however, I'm willing to make a wholehearted and focused attempt should I find a teacher who didn't think I was hopeless to begin with. But where does one find that kind of teacher outside of China? There are art classes in Stockholm for Chinese calligraphy (I took a weekend class once and completely loved it!) and Chinese brush painting, that I know of. Guess I should look into those to begin with, maybe their teachers would know of some paper master happening to live in Stockholm.
One of the best gifts I ever got was from my sister-in-law's visit to Bejing a few years ago, when she got me this big stack of a variety of beautiful paper cuts that I just love going through every once in a while, admiring the incredible handiwork of them. I do hope I get to visit China some day, but I fear I will go slightly mad going to one of these markets I've heard people describe, simply cos I'm gonna want to buy EVERYTHING!
When I went to dinner some months ago, I overheard three guys in their late 20's, early 30's, sitting at the table next to ours. I wasn't eavesdropping or anything, they were just loud talkers and after hearing this one thing, well, I'll admit after that I guess I was eavesdropping to find out the rest. One of the guys, who looked quite ordinary, they all did in fact, and at least one of them I'm pretty sure was a lawyer, anyway: the one guy suddenly told the others that he was moving to China in 6 months to be trained as a Chinese sword master for at least 2 years.
I was as surprised as his friends to hear that, and I had to bite my tongue in order not to ask him questions about it myself! There's not really that much more to say about it, I just got a bit inspired by his announcement, thinking that it's really cool that some people do follow their dreams, even if they are a bit out there, and may not have the most immediate future success in hand, but they do it just the same cos of some kind of inner drive that I admire a lot.
On the other hand, I guess I have done more than most, following my heart all the way to the other side of the world already. Learning to master some Chinese paper cutting on top of that would just be a nice bonus I guess.
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