Art Supply Shopping in China

I had a flood of ideas today- HOO RAH! The lights came on. Quite symbolically I turned around and there was a big light bulb on the table behind me. I love symbols.

I had plenty of little vibrant, fluffy, flighty, ideas fly in to visit me at the Pottery Workshop Studio today. These creatures flew in and around the bird cage of my mind so fast that I could hardly talk at all! It was a flurry of activity amongst my neurones. My brain took over my body, and my mouth stopped working... ha ha.. (I wasn't great company today for the other artists). I had to use every ounce of my energy to keep my attention focused on each little idea, before it spread its wings or beat its fan tail and flew away from the view of my minds eye.

It is days like today that remind me that I really am an artist- irrepressibly, and I just have to lump it.

I decided to strike while the iron is hot and so I marched straight out the door, through the dusty/ noisy Chinese streets and down to the art supply store downtown (near KFC). I shopped for materials to begin to catalogue these ideas- broad optimistic pieces of white a-grade paper, fancy pens with magic tips, tracing paper, alphabet templates, Chinese ink brushes, porcelain carving tools and some tools that I have no idea what they do but I am sure Ill work it out one day.

                        My brush collection is growing bigger by the day, but for 2 RMB why not!

I bought a new 3 tiered pastel pink tool box, to fit it all in. I love the dichotomy of a "pastel pink tool box"... ha ha...

My giant piece of paper and my new templates.

Many things I could just pick up off the isles but some things I had to do charades to act out what I was asking for. My best effort was acting out "tracing paper" to the Chinese shop assistant. It was one of my most interesting contemporary dance pieces yet! We got there in the end and the shop assistant now knows what the English words tracing paper means.

I also did trips to the the underglaze decal shop and bought some beauties. I have made some porcelain bowls with some Christmas chains cut out of decal. Ill glaze them today and get them fired at the public kiln in the next few days.

I did a trip to the glaze shop and bought some underglaze stains as well. Yummy spectrum of colours.

I also went and bought some Fencai ingredients (Chinese ceramic enamelling)- overglaze stain, frankincense oil and camphor oil. My studio is starting to look like a laboratory that makes rainbows.

Now to get busy...!!

The Pottery Workshop

Hellllloooo! Here I am in China living the artistic dream. Life is not always this peachy, but this is why we have dreams and chip away at making them happen. If you dont dream it, it aint gonna happen.

I always knew I would end up making art in China, ever since I read the children's book "The Story about Ping" when I was little girl. Here I am.

I am in an artists residency in a land far, far away. It is exotic, mysterious and the food is delicious here. I have been away from Australia for 7 weeks now. The first 4 weeks was spent travelling far and wide through China attuning my artistic eye to new experiences, eating lots of incredible banquets and breathing in all that is oriental and beautiful. In my travels I went to Beijing, Zhongwei, Xian, Tenneger Desert, Chengdu, Kunming, Lijiang, Zhongdian, Dali, Shaxi and Shangri-la.  Basically I went from the far north of China, down through deserts, mountains, rivers, cities... all the way down to the boarder of Vietnam. An extraordinary trip I assure you, and you will see influence my work for years to come.

For the last 3 weeks I have been here in Jingdezhen at the Pottery Workshop having a crash course in porcelain. The Pottery Workshop is an hour and a half south of Shanghai by plane.

Alas I haven't done any blog entries since getting to China as the Great Fire Wall was too far and wide for this little black duck to fly over, however I have now climbed it and am back. I am not sure where to start- so much has happened, my mind is so full of memories and my hard drive so full of photos! I have 2 more months here so I have plenty of time to fill all the details in about what I have been thinking about.

Being a jeweller (in a ceramics residency) I was shocked at the complexity of the things I needed to learn just to make one little thing!

Here are some photos of the studio here:

My colour test project

My flower project

My workspace

My porcelain greenware