Chinese Folk Art Festival in Hangzhou

More than 200 folk artists from across China displayed over 2,000 masterpieces at the Chinese Folk Artist Festival in Hangzhou City in Zhejiang Province.

The weeklong event culminated on Tuesday with a display of the top ten award-winning pieces.

[Zhang Yesheng, Bladesmith]:
"The patterns on the sword are not artificially carved on. I used three different kinds of steel in forging the rod. The patterns won't come out after heating, striking and folding the metal hundreds of times."

Then there’s the work of Hu Haiming, who works in pyrography—that is, the art of burning images with a heated object, such as a poker. Wood is commonly used but Hu’s preference is silk.

But perhaps most eye catching was the work of Taiwanese artist Cheng Minghu. This is a giant root carving made of a 1,500-year-old piece of camphor. He calls it, “Five Gentlemen.”