First day exploring Jingdezhen

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Jingdezhen is known as the "Porcelain City of China". It has over a thousand year history of porcelain making and was the center for the imperial kilns during the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties. It continues to be an active ceramic production city with unique forms and techniques made possible by properties of the regional clay.

Gary

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Photos

Jingdezhen city street
Street lights and stop signs throughout the city are made of porcelain

Monday morning shard/antique market
Monday and Tuesday mornings vendors from different areas of China unload suitcases of ware in an empty lot. They sell unique artifacts made of wood, metal, ivory, porcelain, coins, books, etc. Some are truly old and others have been "age enhanced". Buyer beware. Another section is dedicated to porcelain shard with beautiful qing hua (blue on white) decoration.

Posters at the shard/antique market
Tina and Eartha looking at woodblock prints of Cultural Revolution posters.

Comments

[Bill Seeley]

Porcelain designs
Dear Gary and group: I am curious: Do the designers -- or artists -- in these procelain shops have much artistic freedom to experiment with various designs? Or does someone give them instructions on which figures to sketch and them craft into procelain objects, such as the heads of Mao? Hope all is going well.

[vanjsymons]

Thanks for inviting me to view your blog
Hi researchers, I am just back from a week long trip in the BWCA, and as a Qing historian and the program coordinator of the Student-Faculty Fellows Program, I look forward to finding out more about China through your research. I hope you have an enjoyable and productive three weeks plus in China. Take care. Van

[vanjsymons]

Thanks for inviting me to view your blog
Hi researchers, I am just back from a week long trip in the BWCA, and as a Qing historian and the program coordinator of the Student-Faculty Fellows Program, I look forward to finding out more about China through your research. I hope you have an enjoyable and productive three weeks plus in China. Take care. Van

[MacalesterChinaArt]

Mao figures
Bill: From being in the "Everything Mao" shop over the past four years I have seen them making several new models for molds. What they work from are old photographs. I do not think they are thinking creatively or artistically, just financially. Will someone buy this one? Since a family based workshop with only three or four workers there is no marketing team researching China for the next hot Mao figure idea. I was told that they are willing to glaze and decorate a Mao figure to your specification. If you want him wearing pink pants and and a purple shirt with red stripes they will do it.