Learning pottery in China

Pottery and I, it is a long story. You can find in the French department where I spent my childhood a village called Saint-Quentin-la-Poterie , known for its long pottery tradition dating back to the fourteenth century.

Less than a five-minute drive from my childhood village is another small village called Pouzilhac, where there are still a few potters. I remember visiting one of these workshops with cousins who were visiting the south of France and wanted to bring back some holiday souvenirs.

Despite this early exposure to pottery, practicing this activity never crossed my mind. I don't really have an explanation for this. Perhaps it might have to do with the bad press that manual activities, including pottery, had at that time? Fortunately, things are changing, and crafts are finally regaining ground today.

Since I moved to Barcelona and started a new chapter in my life, I thought about trying pottery. It was not in Spain but in China, at Untitled Space artist residency in Jin Ze that I had such opportunity.

The Jin Ze Art Center, an arts and crafts center whose mission is to preserve and promote Chinese traditions and crafts, was close to the residence where I was staying for a month. I had the leisure, for nearly two weeks, to learn pottery with one of the Center's teachers.

Kneading clay and getting my hands dirty took me back to happy childhood memories. This activity was a revelation!

The first technique I was taught was to manually remove as many air bubbles as possible from the clay to prevent the pots from breaking during firing. After learning the perfect technique, I set about making my first coil pottery.

I also had the opportunity to try a potter's wheel.

The ancestral coiling technique is clearly what I prefer, and I hope to develop this new string to my creative bow in the future.