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On Chihlee College, I have pottery and aesthetics class every Wednesday. I'm taking the class because it will be an opportunity for me to listen to more Chinese and at the same time work a little with my hands, which will make it possible for me to participate and possibly have a little more fun even though I can't understand much of what the teacher says.
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This wednesday was a little different. In the morning, as in every wednesday morning I had a speech and debate class (in english) with charismatic Tom Harper, who is an Irish new yorker and therefore celebrating Saint Patricks Day. After that, had to hurry and swallow some lunch as a bus was waiting to bring students to Yingge where our teacher lives and produces art for the president, national palace museum and whatnot.
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Here he would show his workshop to the students and explain a bit about material and methods that he uses to create certain effects. The clay there is of a special, extra greasy type and from Japan. Japanese materials are more expensive, but he won't buy from China as he finds the materials from there to be lower quality.
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After having been in the oven, this special clay will produce ceramics with a very light color that you won't get with many other types of clay. Can't tell the name of the clay as the teacher was talking Chinese all the while.
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Here is his daughter painting vases. You can decorate vases with patterns both before and after firing them. The methods for doing so are of very different nature and will produce very different impressions.
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Here, our teacher is telling about glazes. There's basically two categories of glaze for pots. One for low-temperature firing, and one for high-temperature, where high-temperature would be over 800 degrees Celcius. The low-temperature glaze contains a little bit of unhealthy material that you'll need to avoid untill it's fired. I don't know how much of this applies only to the glaze preferences of our teacher or to pottery in general. The temperature that you will chose for firing will usually depend more on the type of clay that you use.
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Ever heard the sound of a metal oven or perhaps a very hot car machine cooling down? It kinda sounds like someone is playing drums on it, right? These sounds a little similar to someone gently hitting a spoon against a wine glass. They're worth loads of money too, as the guy has made quite some brand on them.
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This fellow can say Gong Xi Fa Cai. It's often used in Chinese New Year and means "wish you prosperity".
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Forgot what this was all about, but now we've moved to second floor, which is a small museum with one piece of every ceramic he has made.
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Look at that.
Actually, they didn't want us to take pictures up close on the models because of something to do with copyright or I don't know. It was okay, although, to take photos of the room if we just took photos of all the works together.
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There's also some works on third floor. That's where the most expensive ones are, actually. Should've taken a few more pictures there, but forgot. I think half of them or perhaps more, were reconstructions and look-alikes of Ching Dynasty plus older pottery styles.
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Using human bone powder, the potters in the old times were able to create colors like these.
With a special material, should you use just a little bone powder, the color of your product will become more red like the works to the left. Should you mix more powder inside, it'll be more purple like the vases on the right side.
Nowadays, you can't use human bone powder, however, so you'll have to take it from animals instead.
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At 4 pm, people are a bit tired after hours of class. A few minutes later, we would be on the bus heading back home again. Next time we head out, we'll go to Yingge again and make pottery ourselves on a school over here, so I'm looking a little forward to that. Everything was in Chinese, so it was a little boring at times. As always. But as I'm rather used to not understanding so much, I'd say it was actually really interesting as I could walk around and look at all the arts and utilities there. Wish I could've taken pictures of single works though. I'd have taken a ton. (Then again, if that was the case, I might've felt bad afterwards for not paying attention to class at all I guess.)
Enjoy the next few (two?) days of hot if you're in Taiwan right now. See you.