"I like old stuff, be it people or things-I collect them all in my heart," said Wu, who bears a remarkable resemblance to the graceful, delicate female figures in her work. "Through the passing of time and the accumulation of my life experiences, these old things gradually develop into material for my paper sculpture... For me, a paper cutout is more than just a picture--it tells a complete story."

Owing to her fondness for literature, Ching-fang often draws inspiration from ancient Chinese poetry. With the help of her dexterous hands and fingers, a line of verse can develop into an entrancing paper sculpture. One example is her masterpiece, Listening to the Mountain Pines, which features an old man under pine trees, listening intently to the rustling of the wind in the pine branches.

"When I first came upon the sentence, 'Listening to the pines in the mountains,' I was fascinated by it," said the imaginative artist. "Who would pause to listen to the whispers of pine trees, and what was he thinking about at that particular moment when the mountains were immersed in total silence except for the sound of the wind rustling in the branches?"

But when Ching-fang set out to create a work based on the image conjured up by that poetic line, she encountered many setbacks before working out a more satisfactory version. "I had difficulty capturing the mood and conveying what I felt about it in my creation."

That's the problem she often comes across when creating her art. "I think the hardest part in artistic creation is to convey what your heart wants. I don't care whether people understand my works or not. What is important is when I look at my work, I can say, 'that's exactly what I want.'"

When Ching-fang was creating Listening to the Mountain Pines, the pine trees with their dense foliage also gave her a hard time. "In order to cut all those pine needles, I even got blisters on my hand," said Ching-fang with a chuckle.

But her efforts paid off. The work captured third place in the 1996 Three-Dimensional Art Directors and Illustrators Awards Show, which displayed more than 1,100 works from around the globe. One year later, her Terra-cotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty garnered another prize in the same exhibition.

Despite her achievements, the artist has always had one regret in her heart--that her beloved father did not live long enough to witness all the glories bestowed upon her. "I hope my father in heaven knows about all this."

A rough path

Ching-fang was born in 1966 in Chiayi, where she still lives and works now. A quiet, shy child who would hide whenever she saw strangers, she found solace in reading and drawing, for which she seemed to have a natural talent. She never had the chance to receive any formal artistic training. Her father even forbade her to paint for fear that it would make her already poor eyesight (she had lazy eye) even worse.

In high school, the artist studied fashion design which, she said, was not her cup of tea. After graduation, she went on to work for a cartoon company in Taipei. With a monthly salary as low as NT$3,000 (US$100), she could barely make ends meet. "I ate nothing but instant noodles for over a year."

At her father's request, she returned to her hometown in 1990. However, she was unable to find a decent job in Chiayi, which was and still is far less advanced than Taipei. To support herself, she freelanced as a designer and began to get commissions to design name cards, posters and product catalogues for her clients.

Ching-fang had learned about 3-D paper cutting while working as a cartoonist in Taipei. When she applied the technique to her poster designing, the effect was brilliant and her clients took to it warmly. She was drawn to this craft more and more and finally decided to devote herself to it completely.

But her father was worried. "You almost starved to death when you were drawing cartoons at that cartoon company. Now you will continue to do art?"

Despite his opposition, he still gave his daughter a house to be used as her studio because he knew all too well her determined spirit and unwavering will. "I told my father I was confident of my skills and asked him to have trust in me. But he simply shook his head and sighed."

Just when Ching-fang was busy setting up her studio, her father was diagnosed with cancer. He died a couple of months later, long before he had a chance to see his daughter develop into a full-fledged paper sculptor.

"I miss my father a lot," said the artist. "I think the only thing I can do to comfort his soul is try not to let myself starve. So I do my very best in drawing every sketch and creating every work." In his memory, she even created a series of works based on inspiration derived from Taiwanese folk songs, which her father was very fond of singing.

However, her father's worries proved to be prophetic. During the first several years of her career, she could barely feed herself with the money she earned.

Ching-fang reminisces that people would walk into her studio and highly praise her works. But when they asked about the prices, which ranged easily from NT$1000-2000 (including the cost of framing), they would click their tongues and say, "They consist of only a few pieces of paper-how can they be worth so much?"

All her confidence was crushed by these comments. She hardly knew how to carry on. Knowing about her financial straits, her relatives and friends would buy works from her in other people's names. "They told me they were commissioned by their friends to purchase works from me, but I often found out that they were the real buyers." Her sisters even tucked money under her pillow to help her out.

Looking back upon her past, the artist is grateful for the trials and tribulations she went through. "Someone once asked me, 'Do you think an artist has to experience real pain before he or she can produce memorable and touching art?' My answer was 'yes.' If everything had gone smoothly for me, there wouldn't have been such profound feeling in my works. My paper sculpture would have looked shallow and lacked the power to move people."

Working on paper

Ching-fang taught herself every method and technique used in creating her paper sculpture. When she first tried her hand at the art ten years ago, there were no books or information available which taught even the basics. "I learned from my errors. I made so many silly mistakes that I feel embarrassed just thinking about them."

Her painting skills helped her greatly in perfecting this art. To make 3-D paper cutting, it is best if one can have a good sense of perspective, space and form. Ching-fang illustrates her point: "If the picture contains a house and yard, a river and mountains, there will basically be three focal points in ithe foreground, midground and background. You have to create your paper sculpture in the right perspective, or else it will look all wrong."

To create a paper sculpture, Ching-fang first makes a sketch on paper. She will draw many versions until the final draft is attained. This part of the work usually takes her the longest time. "Sometimes it takes me a month just to get the right version out."

Then she transfers portions of the sketch onto pieces of colored paper, which are then snipped and cut out to construct her sculpture. A house will be divided into several parts, and a human face can consist of more than half a dozen layers. The precise, detailed cutouts will be folded, rolled, braided or creased as needed to get the desired effect. Finally, each piece of paper is glued to the next until the completed project emerges. As a last step, she shades or adds touches of color to the work to accentuate an effect or create depth.

Ching-fang loves the texture, color and feel of handmade paper. Sometimes by simply looking at a piece of paper, she can imagine the whole picture. She points to a work of hers which presents a long-haired girl looking out at a wide, blue expanse of sea. "The color of the sea is the original color of the paper. Even the little white ripples were already there. There was no need to dye the paper or add any color to it."

Ever since she began to try her hand at the craft, she collects paper wherever she goes. Over the years, she has accumulated a considerable quantity of different kinds of handmade paper. "At first I used the paper sparingly. Because all that paper was so beautiful, I could not bear to cut or mangle any of it."

In 1996, she had the chance to go to Japan for an exhibition. When she saw how paper artists there made the best use of cotton paper and turned it into piece after piece of amazing sculpture, she thought of the beautiful cotton paper shelved away at home.

"After I came back, I took out the cotton paper I had collected and combined it with parchment and other kinds of paper in my collection. The achieved effect was fantastic. From then on, cotton paper has become the most important medium of my paper art."

Making use of expensive good paper, she produces thirty to fifty works a year. A work can take her anywhere from two hours to more than a month to complete. Some of her creations are so lifelike that at first glance some people take them to be photographs. In Late Afternoon, for example, a wicker chair, braided from many thin strips of light brown paper, is especially eye-catching. "I looked everywhere for paper whose texture and color resembles that of wicker, but I couldn't find any. At last I managed to dye some paper the color I wanted."

Ching-fang is a perfectionist. She demands the best and is quick to detect flaws. She says that every time she finishes a work, she can always find places in it that are not done to her satisfaction. "Take those two piecesistening to the Mountain Pine and Terra-cotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty-for instance. A moment before sending them out for exhibition, I decided to redo them. Even so, I was still dissatisfied with the final version."

Because of her demand for perfection, she used to suffer a lot. "I used to sit in my studio staring into space and producing nothing for months at a stretch. I was so afraid that I had used up my talent." One of her works, Nightingale, which features a nightingale locked up in a cage, depicts her mood. "Living under the pressure that I put upon myself, I felt as if I were trapped in a cage, unable to let myself go."

Now she has learned to be less hard on herself. Nowadays when she feels tired or exhausted, she just leaves home and goes traveling. "It greatly helps me to refresh my mind. Besides, what I see on my trips also inspires me to create."

Striving for her own expression

Ching-fang is the only female artist among the half-dozen paper sculptors in Taiwan who devote themselves full-time to the craft. Unlike most of the works of her peers, her creations appeal to the taste of adults rather than that of children.

"At first, because of my cartooning background, I did a lot of cute paper sculpture. But I knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do." Then her sisters' love letters gave her an idea. "My sisters liked to quote ancient Chinese poetry in their letters to their boyfriends to express their feelings. When I was reading their letters, an idea occurred to me: why couldn't I turn poetry, which I have always loved to read and memorize, into paper sculpture?"

Her childhood memories are another source of inspiration. Ever since she was a child, she had the habit of keeping journals. She delved into them and found a great deal of good material. "I miss my childhood so much, and it felt good to be able to remember it through my art." Exploring memories and past times in her works, she finally found a language through which to express her feelings.

Ching-fang's works, marked by the delicacy of her touch and the refinement of her expression, touch people's hearts. This year she held a tour exhibition in Central and South Americas, and people there responded warmly to her works. They held her hands tightly and told her how much they loved her paper sculpture. One of her works even induced tears from a government official there. It portrays a young man on a bicycle turning his head to look at the receding figure of an old man. "After my father passed away," explained Ching-fang, "whenever I saw elderly men in the street whose backs resembled that of my father, I would run after them and take a look at their faces. I told this story to that government official, and he turned around to look at that work with tears streaming down his face."

In addition to exhibitions in Taiwan, Ching-fang also displays her works abroad once a year. So far her artistic creations have been invited to exhibitions in Japan, Hong Kong, mainland China, Munich and New York. These displays attract the majority of her clientele. Although her art is greatly appreciated, it is still impossible for her to support herself merely by selling her paper creations, which now cost from NT$10,000 to 70,000 dollars (US$333-2,333) apiece. Therefore she also designs merchandise and does illustrations for books. Three days a week, she also teaches paper sculpture to high school students and adults.

Even so, she still refuses to adopt her friends' suggestions to mass-produce her works to make more money. "If that's the case, then why are people buying from me? And what is the value of art?" The artist insists on her principles. By no means will she pursue fame or wealth through her art. She knows quite well what she really wants.