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Craftsmanship to a T enhances art of brewing
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There’s a Chinese saying that goes: “You will feel cool when you are at peace with yourself.”
During the record-breaking summer heat, Tang Zhiming did just that, chilling out with his trademark work engraving calligraphy and pictures on teapots.
Tang, who lives in Qibao Town, explained his art as he enjoyed a fine Chinese tea brewed in a dark red enameled teapot on which his father had inscribed dao zai wa pi (µÀÔÚÍßê¶), which literally means “truth lies in the pottery.” It refers to the Tao philosophy that “truth lies in everything.”
“My heart is peaceful, like the pottery I inscribe,” he said. “All of engravings refer to somewhere quiet and peaceful.”
Tang said connections in life involve fate. His destiny with red enameled pottery started with his grandfather, who was talented in making glasses from metal and knowledgeable about China’s traditional culture of tea.
“I was able to see many fine clay teapots when I was very young,” he said, adding that many were used as cricket pots.
He was deeply impressed by the poems or pictures inscribed on the pots.
Although he majored in athletes at university, Tang finally followed his family’s footsteps into the arts and traditional Chinese culture. He became a teacher of calligraphy seal cutting after graduation.
In the middle of the 1980s, several Taiwan businessmen invested in local enamel pottery factories and urgently needed talent for the calligraphy. Although Tang had made somewhat of a name for himself carving seals and doing calligraphy, he had never applied his talents to pots. He spared time from his university teaching duties to advise the businessmen on pot calligraphy.
The pictures and poems engraved on pottery take time and a huge energy, he said.
“It’s different from stone or jade,” he said of calligraphy on pottery. “You have to control your strength, making the cuts neither too deep nor too shallow and making the pots neither full with pictures nor full with spaces. Everything must be under control and design to complete a perfect calligraphy cut on pottery. Every pot is different in style and meaning.”
When the pottery factories closed, Tang’s direct work on pot calligraphy ended — at least temporarily – and he resumed full-time teaching at the university.
Art in the blood
“But the art has become deeply rooted in my heart,” he said. “There was something beautiful about combining the beauty of Chinese calligraphy with the culture of pottery.”
Three years ago, a pottery factory in Yixing in Jiangsu Province produced a series of dark-red enameled potteries cut with reproductions of some well-known Chinese calligraphy. Tang’s calligraphy was among those used by craftsmen there. He admits he was a little disappointed by the outcome.
“They are craftsmen, not real artists,” he said. “They are very talented in cutting, but not masterly enough in the art of calligraphy, literary appreciation and the essence of pottery tradition. So I decided to go back to do my own cutting.”
Tang took his carving tools out of retirement and went to Yixing, where he contacted famous pottery makers to buy “naked” dark-red enameled pots to do his own carving. The results were pots of an exquisite quality, surpassing even his own works some 30 years earlier.
The history of Chinese dark-red enameled pottery dates back to Yixing about 500 years ago. The basic function of the pots was to make tea.
Tang has cut over 1,000 pots and other products related to tea-making. He brings a wealth of knowledge of Chinese culture and history to his work. He sits for hours, with no break, doing his carvings.
“It’s such an enjoyable time for me,” he said, not to mention beating the heat in the peaceful solitude of work.
Wherever he goes, whether alone or with friends, he takes one of his teapots with him, along with china cups and fine leaf teas.
Good pot cutting combines the skills of calligraphy, painting and seal cutting, and a sense of literature. Even with the same styles, shapes or materials, each pot is unique.
The Chinese tea culture has a philosophy: “Follow the course of making a pot of fine tea, patiently, step by step.” The same might be said of engraving the pots, Tang said.
His work is popular among Chinese collectors, frequently showing up in auction catalogues. Wealthy buyers snap up pottery as investments, pushing prices higher. The trend doesn’t please him.
“Unfortunately the teapot culture is slipping away from the reach of ordinary people because it’s become all about fame and money,” Tang said. “The Chinese people regard drinking tea as one of the most ordinary things in life. Dark-red enameled pots to brew tea need to be brought back into their lives and not be viewed as just an investment.”
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