Traditional Chinese Paper Art

Chinese paper cutting — jianzhi — is one of the oldest folk arts in the world. For more than fifteen centuries, artisans have folded paper and worked it with knife and scissors into flowers, dragons, and double-happiness symbols for weddings, festivals, and homes.

Xuan paper — xuanzhi — is made by hand in Jing County, Anhui Province, from the bark of the blue sandalwood tree and rice straw. A UNESCO-listed craft, a single sheet can pass through more than a hundred steps and two years of patient work before it reaches a calligrapher's brush.

The brush arts complete the family. Calligraphy — shufa — turns ink and Xuan paper into living lines, while guohua painting carries mountains and flowers across the same sheets. And with a single fold, zhezhi — traditional Chinese origami — gives paper wings.

We work directly with small workshops that keep these traditions alive — so every piece we sell carries the story of the hands that made it.