A cut above

She worked on the piece for about three years, and finally showed 55 characters of the book in the 3-meter-long and 1.5-meter-high work. "I cut each character's front and side look many times and became obsessed with it.

In 2010, former president Hu Jintao received Kim Jong-il, then leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in Changchun, and sent a work of Li's to Kim as a national gift. Over the years, she has been invited to exhibit her work in many countries, including Russia, Japan, France and Germany, and she always gives a demonstration of her cutting skills at the exhibitions, arousing a great deal of interest from visitors.

Born in a remote village in Shuangyang county in Changchun, Jilin province, in 1966, Li learned needlework and paper-cutting from her mother in childhood and grew an intense interest in the latter.

Although she dropped out of school in her teens and engaged in farm work, she didn't give up the hobby, and seized the chance to become an auditor at a local vocational high school with more than 400 paintings and paper-cuttings she had made in her free time. After graduation, she was hired as an art teacher at a local elementary school and became famous thanks to her paper-cutting skills. She later resigned and started her own business, selling customized artworks. Each one takes between two months to one year to produce and is sold for anything from tens of thousands to several million yuan.

Li highlights the importance of innovation in folk art's development.

"We need to endow traditional folk art with greater cultural meaning," she says.

"We should create work to suit the aesthetic standards of modern people, so that the skills can be passed down to future generations."

Contact the writer at wangru1@chinadaily.com.cn