My weekend get-a-way!

A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling like I needed to get away from our group for a little while. So I took a trip to "Club Dread." I guess you can say that I am finally a seasoned traveler as I have fallen ill to some parasite or bacteria. What ever it was, it had me dancing the cha-cha to the bathroom more often than I care to remember. I am now back to the land of the living. It felt like I was beaten by a hammer mill. I had not been taking care of myself prior to the incident and had also let my "food guard" down. So it hit me pretty hard. I have never had any problems with the cha-chas in my previous travels but now I am a little more cautious. Anyway, I thought I'd share a picture of our not so lovely bathroom where I spent most of my weekend. One great thing about this bathroom is that you can pee in the shower guilt free, it is one in the same. The bucket in the corner is for flushing when they decide to shut off our water for no apparent reason. Hopefully, I won't have to go back to "Club Dread" anytime soon!

Gaolin--The original source of kaolin

We went on a field trip to Gaolin. Gaolin is the original source of kaolin for the world of ceramics. The word kaolin is derived from the name of this location where the kaolin clay was mined and processed to make the first high fired porcelain.


At Gaolin we were able to go into the #1 mine. I went all the way to the end of the cavern and looked back without my headlamp to see what it must have been like if your candle went out while you were hauling kaolin out of here. You can see other people coming up behind me with their headlamps. The passages were very small and hard to navigate. Very much like spelunking.

When I turned my camera’s flash back on I caught Bobby trying to pull an Ozzy Ozborne on this innocent bat that was trying to get some rest.

This is Bob Anderson, the director of the West Virginia University China program. He is not guilty! He was actually just riding in the police escort car that was arranged for us to visit this area. Apparently, there is a missile facility near by that required a police escort for our chartered bus.

More photographs from Yaoli

Not my kiln shed!

Though I wish it was. The kiln shed for the snake kiln is a thing of beauty in its own right. My kiln shed is strictly functional. It is built from culled dimensional lumber and cheap corrugated sheet metal. I can’t imagine what it would cost in the states to have a shed built like this. The peeled timbers and rough-cut tile supports are great. Many builders in the states would not know how to deal with this stuff. The tiles are especially beautiful. The last image is of a worker making tiles to fill the back half of the snake kiln. His make shift wheel and bamboo tile jig are really cool. The front half of the kiln is for pots.

This kiln is a real workhorse!

We took a field trip to Yaoli. It was a long bumpy scenic road to get there. Most of the road was under construction supported by China’s recent infrastructure campaign. At Yaoli we had the opportunity to see a fantastic “Snake” kiln. This design is a historic classic dating back to the earliest stoneware production periods. By my estimates, I figure that it has 4,000 cubic feet of stacking space. Occasionally I think my anagama is too big at a little over 100 cubic feet. This kiln should be called a monster kiln measuring about 200 feet long! Looking inside one of the side stokes you can see Danny Crump enjoying his exploration of the kiln. I’m not sure that my photos can capture how awesome this kiln is. They will be firing again within the month. Some of us are trying to plan a trip back out there to see/help with the firing. I would love to feel the power of this kiln at the firebox.

Taking a walk in Jingdezhen

You never know what you might find while walking around Jingdezhen. We set off to look around for used antique bicycles. We ended up in some crazy back-alley workshops. I will never complain about my studios again. These people work in any setting. One of the studios was right next door to a concrete building that had six giant hogs in it. I guess after a while you might not want to vomit from the smell. The pile of glass in the first photo intrigued us to stop and look. In the same yard we noticed some vases sitting out in the sun. Out came a nice Chinese man that invited us to come in and see their wares. We tried to ask what the glass chunks were for but communication was not happening. I am guessing that they were going to grind it up for glaze making. The painting on these pots is phenomenal. Zoom in and look at the brushwork in the third picture (and check out his nails!) He was not even cross-eyed. I can’t imagine doing that for 10-12 hours a day. Two doors down we found a shop making giant planters and tabletops. Everything is once fired. The top of the kiln is loaded with tabletops and sheets of decal for decoration. These must be the cheapos because they also hand paint some of them. This was day number three in Jingdezhen and I was thoroughly convinced we were in the porcelain capital of the world.

Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute

This is the studio that we get to work in. It looks great but lacks some of the comforts that we are used to. Right now we sweat buckets, soon enough we will be freezing. At night the light is poor and the mosquitoes come out in hordes. By Chinese standards the studio is unbelievably nice. I have done some exploring with my friend Bobby Free to some back alley dark and dirty studios. We set the camera up on timer and the flash caught all of the silica in the air. I don’t think they know what silica is so it does not affect them. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. We had demonstrators come and show us how they work. The clay wedger is an apprentice to the thrower who has to throw 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of clay per day depending on the size of the forms. That means that this kid moves 6 to 12 thousand pounds of clay per day. First to the wedging bench, then he wedges it and gives it to the thrower, then he moves the thrown pots outside. It is no wonder that he has zero body fat. Also, the wedger has secretarial duties because the thrower is to busy to stop throwing.