Like a thief in the night

No posts for over a week alas. Have had trouble connecting only to that site. I think it might have been some sort of local blacklisting of blogspot.com, but it all seems to have started again OK.

Good news and bad news.

Some of the Tang Lead green bottles shown in an earlier post have been admired so much by the workers, they have been souvenired while we were sleeping. A great compliment I guess from a ceramic factory, but I hope more don't disappear otherwise my display will be definitely minimal. We have also all had tools taken, also for souvenirs I guess, but yesterday Chris Staley had his watch taken from his workspace. The place is teeming with visitors wanting to have a go on a wheel, so it is like a trade show at times. Anyway the appropriate people were told. There had been a big group of highschool teenagers there in the morning. Then by magic at happy hour it was "found" in the recreation area.

I don't think it is dishonesty so much as curiosity. I had a pair of scissors walk as well.

Latest firing is ontrack, because using a high temp black glaze as one would use an oxide wash, has paid off and the insipid grey clay now looks animated.

Had our first day off last Thursday and went on a class trip to Chen Lu, a traditional mountain pottery area. First stop was a ceramic museum.

The Australasians

Chen Lu was medieval and picturesquely quaint in a third world industrial revolution kind of way.

Very much a working pottery town with heaps of coal and most buildings made of brick and retaining walls made from old saggars. The coal smoke haze was all pervading, as it is in most places we have been. Occasionally you can see stars at night

It rained all day for the first time since we arrived and the coolness was welcome. You quickly forget the smell of rain on dirt.

There was a feeding frenzy of potters in the seconds yard of a Sung and Ming repro factory. Small children would have been trampled to death.

Back at the tile factory, the wood kiln firing started last night at 10pm complete with cold beer and the ubiquitous string of double-happys for good luck.

Jxx

Three Steps Leaping Forward

I just love being here in China in Fuping, the people are great. Feels like a second home. Really happy times. Lots of Only in China Moments that Rosemarie and I first discovered in 1986. You have to laugh and there is plenty of that. Chinese plumbing rules you daily life. Water availablity is so random, especially hot. You beging to assimilate how life is for the majority of Chinese, who live in this largely rural country. No bank will change $US in Fuping. They are all Agricultural and Industrial banks, not Bank of China. Won't accept any of our cards at their ATMs. Mr Xu, the owner of the complex, has a drinking buddy who is the head of Bank of China, so he will exchange cash. Only in China.

All starting to come together now workwise. The factory folk seem to like us and come watch us working. (Wonder what the factory will start making when we have left?) They think NZers are so polite. Guess we are more suited to solving our own problems by ourselves and certainly doing every part of the process without an assistant's help. Interesting to see other ways of working. The Black (read Manganese) clay fires a dark pinky grey, which is fine. I was just so relieved to get anything out whole after my three disastrous test firings.

Basically with the firings it has been established that in the factory they bisque fire to 1170 oC and then glaze to 950 oC for the low-fire lead Tang glazes. Clay is still a little porous, so glazing is easy. Have done tests with manganese dioxide and a 1170 oC black they raw fire after elaborate sgraffitto (no masks or extractors, just puffing the dry glaze away with a rubber slip trailer bulb.) Dickensian.

I used the tests like trad oxide washes. I plan to see if they will enhance/enliven the grey brick clay, which looks a bit dull and dead. However I also like the idea of being in a brick factory and only using the clay exactly the same as the factory: Unadorned as a brick and not mucked around with and cosmeticly surgeryised, like a potter would after the fact? Dilemma.

Am building up a body of work based on my interpretations of classical Chinese forms within my own language and methods of working which was my original intention. Need to keep my focus.

Agate, piercings, curved bottle forms etc were all there in antuity in the Shanghai Museum. The pieces also start to reference the heavy bronze items as well. Not intentionally I believe, but I like what is happening.

Lots of great Australians and a special American, Elaine, who is just like us. Full to bursting dining room. Happy hour out by the vineyard has extended to three round tables pushed together. Drinking so much Chinese beer, because it is cold (mostly it is) and it is a bug free liquid. Blokey huh?

Never thought I would say it, but you can very quickly get over a fascination with Chinese food. Three meals a day of basically the same thing and nothing washed in water. Zilch fresh fruit buy still a scurvy free zone. Would really like a tea with real milk and a fresh lettuce salad out of the garden. A few have been really sick and glad of a clean bathroom a few steps away. Touch wood and fingers crossed.

Weather really starting to heat up. Was 37 oC the other day. Went for a walk after dinner last night and it was mild and magical. The complex is lit at night with lots of green and yellow lights on the trees and buildings. It looks like an exotic resort by night. You don't see the persistent dust which permeates everything, including us. The dust is always from the wind bourne loess, but mainly from the factory who have never heard of OSH. No protection anywhere. No guards around belts and pulleys or safety mechanisms on any of the tile rams etc. Certainly no extractor fans or vacuum cleaners. You trudge around in the dust and the lead like the workers. Evidently the expected life span is 40. Figures. The best shower of the day is the 5pm one after work, to decontaminise, lucky and fortunate us. Not so for the workers, where they live. But the oddest thing is that they work all day in good clothes and never seem to get dirty. Black is especially popular to wear to make bricks and tiles. There is a pride and a dignity there. They don't seem to wear jeans? Just tailored trousers for everyone. Dresses scarce.

In comparison we are slobs covered in clay in casual work clothes : shorts, jeans, track pants and jandals.

Jxx

Falling from heights

Riding high on what I have been doing and then bought down to earth with a crunch as the bisque pieces came out of the kiln, warped as hell.

Tiles can be stacked very differently to ceramics.

Big Lesson.

Glazed some more test pots to be fired with the low temp lead black.

Low fire lead kiln had had a disaster with factory ware and was being cleaned out.

Then followed my disaster as they fired the kiln 100 degrees to hot for the glaze they gave me.

We seem to have had a lot of trouble sorting out the rules of firing. Everyday they seem different. The workers are great but they have no vested interest in what we are doing.

Now we are beginning to fire in seperate kilns not involved in the brick and tile production line. This is more hopeful.

This one loaded this morning is in the glaze lab.

Fingers crossed,

Jxx

We are in a ceramic factory after all

Started using an interesting grey brick clay called Black Clay because of the wet state colour.

Got some plates jiggered by a young factory guy and have been turning them. Very interesting, the sand and grog tear and leave a texture. I plan to once fire them to 1190 centigrade. Using ridges and holes to create the textures.

Also historic moment, me returning to colour. Glazing with the Tang Green (Lethally toxic raw lead based)

And the fired pieces

Off for a banquet lunch to farewell the Americans,

Jxx

Turning point

This amazing man threw me some large bowls on a constant speed wheel and then I have started turning them with ridges

Starting to let go my own imposed restrictions and embracing what the factory has to offer. The clay is brown and heavily grogged, so the grooves are rough. I hope to glaze these with the Tang Lead Green. Beautifully ancient, lethally toxic, but not exactly a bowl for marinading fish,

Jxx

Confronting Demons

Breakfast

Had a bad first day yesterday, dealing with a new wheel which wouldn't go slow. Just half speed to full. Struggled trying to make some test bottles.

Impossible.

Sleepless night realising that the world was really going to find out this time I was a complete fake.

Chris swapped his Shimpo wheel with me because he is cutting and distorting and not relying on recentering.

Heaven. Back to being in control of the technicals.

We are working in a tile factory, which makes the repro roof tiles for temples. Much raw red lead around.

Scary huh?
Haven't quite worked out the blog image resolution yet

Jxx

Started Work

No internet connection in Fuping until today.

So quickly here is our museum under construction.

We open on 27 May 2007.

Started work today in the tile factory.

Jxx