[Photo by JIANG DONG/CHINA DAILY]

Two weeks later, Chang Shana was told by her father that the couple, both teachers at Tsinghua University's architecture department, would establish an institute of traditional Chinese arts and crafts, and that they had a teaching assistant's job for her.

"They had a passion for developing our centuries-old arts and crafts in a modern time," Chang Shana says, adding that she then began working as an assistant to Lin.

At the time Lin had fallen ill and was bedridden but Chang says they worked hard every day on many ideas regarding the Mogao murals.

"We discussed categorizing the patterns of the murals, as well as incorporating them with the production of Chinese cloisonne enamelware or jingtailan."

Chang also designed her first series of related works back then that were chosen as gifts for delegations attending the Asia and Pacific Rim Peace Conference in Beijing in October 1952.