Artists bring city back to life as porcelain capital
Print Edition
CANADIAN artist Terrance Lazaroff has visited Jingdezhen half a dozen times. Though the small city in east China’s Jiangxi Province may be unfamiliar to most westerners, it is a mecca for Lazaroff, 74.
“Everyone who loves china must come here at least once,” he says.
Jingdezhen is synonymous with ceramics in China and boasts a long history of pottery production. More than 1,000 years ago in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Emperor Zhenzong named the area with the title of his reign, Jingde, as recognition of its ceramics.
The products were exported around the world.
At the peak of the industry in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, there were 100,000 ceramics workers in the city.
In the 1980s, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the city to produce ceramics for foreign embassies, emblazoned with the national emblem.
At that time about 60,000 people in Jingdezhen worked in its 10 major ceramic factories. Almost every family had someone working in a ceramics factory.
In the 1990s, however, the factories experienced a slump with the advent of the market economy. Workers were laid off, and factories closed.
But in 2000, artist Li Jianshen founded the Sanbao international ceramics village. It now attracts hundreds of ceramic fans each year. Among them was Terrance Lazaroff.
“Here I can talk to artists from all over the world,” he says.
Over his six visits he has seen many changes.
“When I first came here in 2003, children followed me in the streets because there were not so many foreigners,” he says. “Now it’s a big city.”
Duan Jianping, 45, turned to ceramics in 2015, when he gave up his job as a senior editor and founded Xianyunju ceramics.
“I added some fashionable elements to the traditional design,” he says.
He used a gold color on a traditional blue-and-white design to make Xianyunju a luxury brand.
“We received so many orders that we could hardly finish,” he says. This year they estimate that revenue could reach 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million).
Jingdezhen is now home to more than 30,000 people working in ceramics.
Huang Wei, a teacher at Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, is glad to see the changes. “Anyone who has love for traditional Chinese culture could not bear to see the city languish,” she said.
Huang, 35, graduated in archeology from Peking University and first came to Jingdezhen in 2006 for archeological research.
“When I was picking up ceramic chips from the pit, I felt like I was having a dialogue with history,” she says.
In 2014, she and her husband settled down in Jinkeng village, renting 16 hectares of land to grow rice and chrysanthemums, and renovating the area so she could work with ceramics.
She also hosted a series of salons on local ceramics.
“It is my hope that this place can be a venue of learning and discussion of porcelain culture,” she said.
“We are preserving not only the ancient site itself, but the soul of Jingdezhen.”
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