Ceramic Festival

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May 18th 2007

Published: August 9th 2007

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Santandrea

Cuite Little Girls

Enjoying some "Meat" on-a-stick

This is the biannual World Ceramic Festival which is held in three towns, Gwangju, Ichon, and Yeoju all south of Seoul, and depending on traffic a 1 - 3 hour drive, but as we found out the second day that we were there, the best way to get to the festival from Seoul is by the free shuttle buses which leave from the COAX mall and Insadong.

The first day we went to the Ichon site which has the main exhibit hall and shows all the competition pieces from all the competing countries. Most of them were very good, but......allot of them were the deep abstract form of work, and that was the type of design that won the "Grand Prize" a bunch of little cylinder's in a V pattern? After walking around the exhibit, the weather decided to turn bad and it rained off-and-on the rest of the day. So we just walked around looking at all the booths with the local ceramic makers showing, and selling off there wares. I must say there is a tremendous amount of ceramic making talent in that area. There were all kinds of nice pieces, from practical house ware items to fine

Vases

This was an old traditional styled wood burning kiln, and these are some of the ceramic that came from it

collectable art/vases.

The second day the weather was gorgeous and we drove to Gwangju to see what this city had to offer. It has a totally different exhibit center, which focuses on the history of ceramic, mainly from Turkey. There is a very nice little park here with various whimsical sculptors from various Spanish artists. Also in the square is a large water fountain that all the little squids (children) enjoyed playing in and the weather was perfect for it. We ate lunch here, Noodles with Black Sauce; it was very good, much better than the food at the Bamboo festival.

This is the biannual World Ceramic Festival which is held in 3 towns, Gwangju, Ichon, and Yeoju all south of Seoul, and depending on traffic a 1 - 2 hour drive (40km to 80km from Seoul), but as we found out the second day that we were there, the best way to get to the festival from Seoul is by the free shuttle buses which leave from the COAX mall and Insadong.

The first day we went to the Ichon site which has the main exhibit hall and shows all the competition pieces from all

Plant

This booth sold the cooliest looking potted plant displays, this one was the most unusual, have no idea what it is.

the competing countries. Most of them were very good, but......a lot of them were the deep abstract form of work, and that was the type of design that won the "Grand Prize" a bunch of little cylinder's in a V pattern? After walking around the exhibit, the weather decided to turn bad and it rained off-and-on the rest of the day. So we just walked around looking at all the booths with the local ceramic makers showing, and selling off there wares. I must say there is a tremendous amount of ceramic making talent in that area. There were all kinds of nice pieces, from practical house ware items to fine collectable art/vases.

The second day the weather was gorgeous and we drove to Gwangju to see what this city had to offer. It has a totally different exhibit center, which focuses on the history of ceramic, mainly from Turkey. There is a very nice little park here with various whimsical sculptures from various Spanish artists. Also in the square is a large water fountain that all the little squids (children) enjoyed playing in and the weather was perfect for it. We ate lunch here, Noodles with Black Sauce;