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POTTERS
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COLUMBIA
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J n gd @Z h en Ad ve nt Ure By Kay Bonathan, Tri-City Potters

Flags flying, rock band playing, crowds milling about buying
ceramics under bright yellow canopies: this was the scene that
greeted us last October in Jingdezhen, China’s porcelain capital. After
sightseeing in Shanghai, five members from Tri-City Potters—Carlene
Akester, Kay Bonathan, Hannah Chan, Grace Siu, and Eliza Wang—
were primed for a two-week artist residency at Jingdezhen’s Pottery
Workshop. In the Shanghai Museum, we saw room after room of
magnificent porcelain much of which had come from the imperial
kilns at Jingdezhen. Now we were ready to learn about traditional
techniques for making classical and contemporary Chinese pottery.

Our arrival coincided with two festivals. In the square outside
our residence, the Pottery Workshop was swinging into a week-long
celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary with a creative vendors’
market, gallery exhibition and lecture series, while downtown the
Jingdezhen International Ceramics Fair had just opened. There, we
discovered with pride that our own Eliza Wang was one of only three
Canadian artists represented in the the Contemporary International
Ceramics Exhibition. Both festivals opened our eyes to the wide range
of possibilities for using ceramics in functional and sculptural forms.

Five-thirty Monday morning saw us piling into a cab headed for
the open-air shard and “antique” market. It was rumoured that with
knowledge, persistence and some hard bargaining, one could pick
up choice bits of Ming vases or some jade carving. We were a little
daunted on seeing eight city blocks of broken crockery and bric-a-brac
laid out on the pavement. After the fun of browsing and bargaining,
we crossed the boulevard and bought breakfast groceries at Wal-Mart.

Two days went by in a flurry of orientation: meeting the other
residents who were from Australia, Switzerland, Sweden and the
United States; buying tools, decals and under-glazes; visiting the
brush-makers and putting in our orders with the rubber stamp-maker.
As taxis whisked us from one part of town to the next, we caught
glimpses of lamp posts, pedestrian bridges, fountains, monuments and
landscaping all made of or decorated with painted porcelain.

Finally, we were ready to begin a series of six half-day workshops
given by local artisan-specialists. As we struggled to create clay shapes
worth reproducing, the mould-maker strolled in and, at a glance, told
us how many pieces each mould would require. Four intense hours
later we all had plaster moulds to use for slip or press casting. In the
process we had learned to identify undercuts, mix plaster, create pocket
moulds and find separation lines.

Next came the casting teachers with a selection of dry moulds ready
to demonstrate both techniques. Of special interest was a device for
slab cutting made from a pipe, two bolts and a guitar string. Soon we
had an array of small clay Buddhas, money gods, fruit and vegetables
to practice on.

We were keen to learn about the beautiful decorating techniques
we had seen used on museum pieces: celadon vases with intricate
surface carving, blue under-glaze painting with fuid lines and delicate
shading, colorful on-glaze designs with superb depth and detail. Our
carving teacher arrived with a set of tools she had made for each of
us. The painting teachers brought their own pigments for us to try.
They demonstrated the processes and encouraged us to follow their
precise directions. As we practiced, we increasingly appreciated their
skill and years of experience. The last workshop, flower making, was
a real challenge. Our teacher, taking pity on us, generously offered

Left to right: Eliza Wang, Grace Siu, Carlene Akester, Hannah Chan,
and Kay Bonathan of the Tri-City Potters Guild visiting a big pot
factory.

Loading the public gas kiln.

Continued on Page 6, Pieces ready to glaze

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter « February 2011