Jing De Zhen 景德鎮
The Pottery Town
Sept - Oct, Fall, 2017
That Summer, I was so desperate from my first art gallery office job, definitely a lot to adjust from my previous ceramics studio job. It's totally a different work setting, and work environment vibe.
By the end of August of 2017, I finished a massive exhibition. I was drain out, and feels like tanked tones of responsibility on my shoulder. Finally the exhibition is done.
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It's not easy to swallow all the pressure in while keeping seeing my friend did something fun in their pottery life, started wood firing project, achieved new glazes... and by that time, a lot of my friends make a pilgrimage to Jing De Zhen. Maybe cause we started off pottery more or less the same time, and they ain't not the chill out kind, they have their standard to themselves. So that's a right time for them to want to go there.
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One day, I came across a post that one of the pottery place in Hong Kong @tungyao were holding a trip to there! With old places, factories and traditional kilns tours, visiting masters and wood firing places and participated in wood firing. I remember I felt like living in a dream just only by reading the brief by the time that I saw the post online. At the same time, my dearest studio-mate @runningtartar also told me they will be heading to JDZ for a few weeks!
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Was almost like a girls trip, living together, playing together, and chatting, making noises In the studio. I joint my friends for the most of the time, and joint the other studio trip on some other days. And here is where I met @mceramics. We both didn't expect we will became friends till now. I started talking to her cause I was intrigued by her Kandinsky tattoo. And I guess not much people named it and said it out loud as an ice breaker :P
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With my friends we rent an airbnb, we groceries, we cooked, took cab back to the pottery village every morning. Found cool places to have craft beer at night, playing dumb games. They sent me to a China hospital when I was drunk cycling LOL. (@georamics is still having nightmare of seeing blood till 2019, when I saw her that she told me) oppsss.
But apart from the accident, we found a lot of interesting clay, eye opening ways of making pottery, old and organic pottery environment and traditional craftsmanship, which we admire a lot alot. Not to mention the laughters brought by @hilariehon in the studio, no one I have ever met that is smarter and funnier than her, say no words. Fun traveling on the last day, walking in between the line og Jiang Xi and An Hui feels bazar yet amusing.
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That fall, I learnt a few new bands, enjoyed cozy breeze on the car and chased the moon. Soaked under the sunlight did pottery on the wheel. (and more.....) It's unforgettable and I hope I will remember the days and people by dropping this very brief note.
Hope the village and clay industry will all still doing well. (Apr, 2022)
See more of the Jing De Zhen residency works here.
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