Type your paragraph here.
EMAIL ME AT: tfeyrer@hotmail.com
Those that can, do. Those who cant, teach.
SINCE 1978
1978
Interesting observations about working in China.,,,,,,Dubai......Philippines.
There are so many things to say about what I experienced living and working as a potter in a foreign land. By far to many to list, and I am not a writer, so I will try my best to just add a few comments.
In China if you are a foreigner, you get basically preferential treatment in just about anything you want to do. As a foreigner you are constantly "fawned over" , I cannot think of a week that I wasn't asked over for dinner, taken to dinner, or even on a trip to other cities in China. Every opportunity is made there for you to show your work, country wide! They don't care what you create, what your gender is, what your age is. The only requirement is that you are a non Asian foreigner. Out of the wood work the locals will appear, offering themselves to "help" and to always accept a challenge when you ask them for help.
This 'over zealous" type of character towards the foreigner often gets you in trouble. So many times I have had help that the task at hand was a failure. I think Chinese are bred not to fail, so the word "no" or "you can't" or "that wont work" are not in their vocabulary. So many times the word "yes we can" was given to me, only to end up "no we could not". But that is one of many cultural differences one has to get accustomed too if they can. After 5 years I threw my hands up and walked away.
The glazes I developed there, I believe were my best to date. The kilns I used were much better than the high priced "Baily KIln's I had in the USA. The stoneware I was using was not as good, cracked handles and "S" cracks in the bottoms. I tried a lot of techniques and came to the conclusion that the "stoneware" there was good for work with out handles, or better for slip casting, and was not true stoneware. The culture is for the most part, Porcelain based. And as you know, I do not like the coldness in my opinion of Porcelain.
Any foreigner in China is a superstar! I could glaze fire a piece of cat shit and it would be highly prized. Being treated the way I explained gets old real fast. You, yourself becomes the interesting work on display, the exhibit. Most Foreigners think its their work that the Chinese are admiring, and yes some I have met there truly deserve the recognition, but in all reality its just the hanging out with a foreigner they enjoy and collecting their work is a bi-product of that relationship.
They do try sometimes try to mimic or downright copy, but for the most part they just want to learn about the foreigner. Being held back, and closed off for centuries, and even now (only 1 news outlet), a lot of the "art" is not experienced there from the outside world.
I want to go back there someday soon. I miss the city of jingdezhen, Beijing, Xian, and Shanghai, I miss the food, historical sites, and my pool room friends (even their pool tables are different). I do not miss the Ceramics there, nor the ceramic community, Foreigner and locals.