The Makers
Hands That Hold
Centuries of Memory.
Every TSINGPU piece is made by a master who inherited their craft from the generation before. Here are their stories.
The Makers
Every TSINGPU piece is made by a master who inherited their craft from the generation before. Here are their stories.
Our Approach
We do not work with factories.
We work with families.
With individuals who woke up at five this morning
to stoke the kiln or mix the indigo vat.
— How We Choose Our Artisans
Master Artisan
At 64, Zhou is one of only twelve living masters of Nanjing Yunjin brocade weaving. She works on a loom that is taller than a doorway, using a technique called "cutting the flower" — lifting individual warp threads by memory, without a pattern drawn on paper.
Zhou began at 16, apprenticed to her mother. She now trains the next generation in her studio near the Qinhuai River.
The "yunjin" technique uses gold and silver foil beaten into threads so fine they are measured in microns.
Each TSINGPU clutch passes through Zhou's hands for 72 hours. No two are exactly alike.
Master Artisan
Wang's scissors move through red paper in his studio in Yuxian, Hebei — a village where the paper-cut tradition has turned simple sheets into intricate windows of storytelling for over five hundred years.
Wang began at 12, apprenticed to his mother. His hands now hold the muscle memory of a thousand patterns — flowers, animals, and the twelve zodiac figures.
Wang cuts freehand, without drawing the design first. The scissors become a pen; the paper, his canvas. One wrong cut and the piece is ruined.
The large festival windows take 30 days to complete. Each TSINGPU paper-cut is mounted between handmade mulberry paper and sealed with rice-paste.
Support the Makers
10% of every sale goes directly to our artisan training fund, ensuring these techniques survive into the next century.