Even the light posts are porcelain!

Most light posts in Jingdezhen are porcelain. Its amazing to travel through the city and see the different designs. This one outside of the apartment I was staying is a dragon motif that is very common.

Penland, NC I challenge you to up the ante for the handful of light posts you guys have in town. Wood/soda maybe?

Road to Jingdezhen

Drove out of Shanghai for my first trip to Jingdezhen. Over the 8 hours I got a much better feeling for some of the beauty that China offers. Shanghai's size and congestion distract from its culture. It's metropolitan feel is comforting for a westerner but its not the heart of China. Shanghai is a melting pot of eastern/western urban influence.

A few hours out of Shanghai I started to see large rice paddies. There are elaborate canal systems that direct water into the paddies. The criss cross pattern of the paddies is an engineering feet that stretches deep into China's agricultural past. Every inch of flat land is used to grow something. Our driver, Bao Zhi, who's nickname means chinese dumpling, told me that we were also passing many tea farms. They were growing green tea bushes on terraced farms that crept up into the mountains.

 I had to include the image of the Avatar-like tree structure we passed. Its actually a toll booth but it looks like it was plucked straight from a legoland fantasy world. I will be in Jingdezhen for the next 3 days so I will post many images from my travels.

Turkish National Day and The Fire of Anatolia

I am posting an Iznik Tile in honor of Turkish National Day. I attended a dinner and dance performance tonight at the World Expo Pavilion. We saw the pavilion before dinner when there were very few people. It was so nice to have time to really look a the exhibits. Some pavilions have 9 hour wait times but our invitation got us right in with no wait. Among other things there was an exhibit on Iznik Pottery. Iznik is one of my favorite types of pottery. The color, movement and balance of Iznik compositions have all influenced my design sense. Wikipedia has a surprisingly good history of Iznik development. Check it out.

After dinner at the Turkish Pavilion's restaurant we were treated to a dance performance by The Fire of Anatolia. They are a dance troupe that mixes modern and traditional Turkish dancing. The music has a hard driving bass line topped with traditional Turkish melodies. I don't know enough about dance to accurately describe the style. It incorporates belly dancing, step dancing (like Ireland's River Dance) and theatrical story telling. It was intense and last for two hours. Check it out.

I would highly recommend going to the Expo if you can visit Shanghai. Ill post more as I visit the other pavilions.

Demo at Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts at Fudan University

I recently had an opportunity to do a guest demo at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. This school was started about five years ago to give Fudan University an art school. I went out to demonstrate the basics for a beginning throwing class. I had a great time and the students seemed genuinely interested. Its hard to say if they were more interested in me because I was an American but it was nice that they paid attention.

The studio was very large with 20 ft ceilings. Half the space was for ceramics and the other half was for the glass hot shop. I asked around and you can choose glass or clay. Wouldn't it be great to go to a school where you could do both as an undergrad? There aren't many in the US. Their were more than 25 students spread around neatly organized throwing stations. They had two large gas reduction kilns and a few Skutt electrics. So far I have noticed that most Chinese wheels sit very low to the ground. For the demo I raised my wheel up 6 inches and I still felt like I was curled into a ball. At the PWSS studio I have raised all the wheels in the hopes that we will save a few trips to the chiropractor for my students. 

Caroline Cheng was gracious and translated for me as I spoke. Presenting through a translator would be good practice for all teachers. It made me reconsider my lack of economy with word choice. When I speak to people who share my language I take for granted all the figures of speech that slide under the radar. When I spoke through an interpreter I had to consciously think "Does this metaphor make sense to non English speakers?" or "How can I say this was as few words as possible?" There were many times when Caroline helped explain things that I didn't cover clearly.

It was funny to be talking about the history of ceramics to Chinese students. When it comes to design there aren't many forms that don't have roots in China. I was talking about a "traditional" bowl form that I attributed to Italian Majolica. I was reminded that the original was actually a rice bowl from the 1200's. It really hit home that most design ideas traveled back and forth along the Silk Road for 100's of years before they became traditions in one country or another.

Hyatt on the Bund's Vue

I'm not usually one to be amazed by a bar but the Hyatt on the Bund's Vue is worth all the praise. It is 32 floors up overlooking the Huangpo River. From one angle you see Shanghai's most famous western architecture, The Bund (the second picture below). From the other angle you look into Pudong with its mega skyscrapers.

I am consistently amazed at the ability of Shanghai architects to light their buildings. Some seem to look better at night than in the day. In the image below you can see the Pearl TV tower in the foreground with the Shanghai Financial Center just behind it. Many of the buildings have mini light shows/videos projected on their sides every night. The glitz can seem saccharine but I have gotten sucked in like a little kid at the county fair.

The kicker of the night was the marble hot tub that was the cornerstone of the outdoor terrace. It was surrounded by small tea rooms with a large gazebo covering the entire terrace. If you didn't remember to bring your suit you could purchase one for about 200 RMB ($30). Most people just sat with their legs in. It was such an unexpected part of this elegant skyline environment.

SWFC Observatory- 1555 ft above Shanghai

I have embraced my role as tourist here in Shanghai. I spent last weekend with a new friend from Germany, Ian Knop, walking around Shanghai checking out the city. We spent 45 Rmb ($6.5 US) to ride under the Huangpu River on a "sight seeing tour". It turned out to be a lot like the 1979 Sega game Astroids. There were lots of  blinking lights accompanied by new age space sounds. The theme was a subterranean journey through earth complete with a side trip to heaven and hell. The mistranslated English was the perfect touch. We reemerged topside on the Pudong side of the river. A short walk took us to the Shanghai World Financial Center. This monster of a building was completed in 1998 and stands as one of the tallest buildings on earth. I think it has the tallest observation deck of any building at 1555ft above sea level. From the basement we ascended to the top in an elevator in 60 seconds. That is roughly 8 meters = 26 ft per second. Amazing. Check out the amazing view. Ian took all these pictures.The haze that you see in the images in unfortunately the heavy pollution that comes from this city of 20 million.