The city of Taiyuan, Shanxi province, now has a cultural heritage base especially for art, its first, as of Nov 16, to give shoppers direct access to some cultural heritage products.

The base, located in the Lee's Furniture Mall, has some work of 10 Shanxi artists - carvings, woodcuts, embroidery, dyeing, and clay sculptures - with local characteristics. Some three-color paper-cuts by Guo Meihua are in the spotlight in the Home Accessories Gallery, along with some flower embroidery cushions and pillows.

Guo, who is from a family with a history of paper-cuts, has amazed people with her dexterity, for example, cutting a paper profile of an elderly visitor right after taking just a glance at her.

The art base organizers plan to bring in experts, scholars, enterprises and public figures to work together to establish a research and information center to exhibit and sell their products.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw