Through a traditional earthenware community in Sichuan: Longchang
- Giacomo Caruso
- Dec 2, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 6, 2024
Last week, because I am a relentless nomad, I caught a sleeper train (comfy and slow, very meditative) to Longchang town 隆昌, in Eastern Sichuan. Gods of Nature, I never expected to have such an enlightening experience! Primitive pottery made in a glorious and most humble manual way by the most hospitable people I met in China probably, in my life. This is the first of many visits, in the succeeding months, I am sure, I plan to make a thorough ethnographic research here and bring in my students from Hubei Minzu University to enjoy and experience.
I visited two workshops so far. In the first, the young master Li Yourong is a courageous explorer of the effects of ash on the local siliceous clay. He tries, with admirable experiments, to bridge the local tradition of humble clay, simple utilitarian forms, with beautiful tea ware in which I can certainly see some influence from the wabi sabi culture made famous in Japan by Murata Shuko, Sen No Rikyu and his descendants.
In the second, a family run factory centres on a recently renovated Dragon Combustion Kiln that was originally founded in the Qing Dynasty. Potters, all family friends or relatives, still do beautiful, sturdy, primitive utilitarian vessels whose Han or Jin dynasty precursors you can still admire in some museums all around the country. The kiln is regularly fired with coal and the process lasts for at least a whole week. The master of the house, Ding Jingmin, is a most benevolent and talented man. He has in recent years attempted a renovation of his personal style and endeavored, successfully, to make tea ware with local materials. His control of firing conditions is masterful and the ash sprinkles on the vessels give them a touch of supernatural. It is very true that the greatest form of harmony reflects the submission of man to nature, or rather the disappearance of man's will into nature. Great pottery art is borne of this combination, of this fusion of intention and aesthetical power. But it is always, as is the case of Longchang earthenware, the Way of Humbleness, the way of Ch'an, that unites life and art and the spirit. There is no separation, there is no secondary aim other than the creation of humanity, compassion, and beauty for everyday use.
Giacomo
Enshi, Hubei
12/02/2024
PS
Here two links to our pottery from Longchang, have a look and enjoy it: