Kernel carving

　　Kernel carving (or nut carving) is a miniature sculpture work on peach pits, almonds, olive pits and walnuts by skilled folk craftsmen. The artwork, known for delicacy and elegancy, offers wide views in a small confined space, and shows boundless universe and various aspects of life on a tiny kernel. The Kernels are often carved with lines of poems, or the joyous life of fisherman, or baskets with hundreds of flowers, or Buddhist arhats. In the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911), kernel carving has culminated to a very high technological and artistic level speaking of design and sculpture skills, and is praised as "a marvel in sculpture, the crown of traditional arts ". In Suzhou kernel carving, olive kernels are the main raw materials, and most artisans live in Zhoushan Village of Fragrant Hill on the shore of Taihu Lake. Among the carving artisans, Yin Gengfu stood out as one of the best representatives of the kernel carving masters in Zhoushan Village. His carving skills or the Yin School kernel carving skills were inherited by artisans such as Yin Rongsheng, Yin Xueyun, Xu Yinsheng, and Zhong Nianfu. Since then, the kernel carving scored giant development. In recent decades, a new generation of kernel carving masters such as Chen Suying, zhou jianming, Song Shuiguan, Xu Peijin, Yin YiJun have gained ground and risen to fame.
　　Inheritor of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Kernal Carving: Song Shuiguan, Zhou Jianming.