My relationship with pottery started with a small statue of god of land
It was back in when I was in elementary school. During wartime (World War II), I didn’t have to go to school. It happened that there was not much farm work for me during the off season, so I started off using clay that was to make bricks from my home and built a wind furnace that surprised the entire family and very much lauded by them. I still remember how proud I was as an eleven-year-old boy then. Another time when I was grazing cattle in the winter, I was inspired to make god of land using the dry sediments of the pond. I decorated his hat with wildflowers and used the willows floating on the water as his beards. The statue was so vivid that I could still see it in front of my eyes until now. It was the earliest time I could recall that I was able to make something out of clay. Maybe the sense of art is just in my blood, and I am destined to be a “clay addict” and do something with clay for the rest of my life.
Due to my family’s economic conditions, I chose to enter Hsinchu Teachers School after graduating from National Miao-Li Agricultural and Industrial Vocational High School. I was very lucky to have met LI Che-Fan who inspired me to set foot on the road of art. He was a great educator with both wisdom and love, who always came perfectly prepared with diverse and well-organized teaching materials. His teaching method was also flexible and interesting that I just aspired to become a teacher like him and made that as my life's career. The following year after I graduated from the Fine Arts Department of National Taiwan Normal University, I got the invitation from him to teach at my alma mater Hsinchu Teachers School. I will never forget how much care I got from him and how much he had done for me.
In 1967, I got a Japanese national scholarship and went to Kyoto University of Fine Arts (now Kyoto City University of Arts) to study ceramic art. However, this kind of college postgraduate two-year special program of Japan didn’t have any equivalent in Taiwan and was not recognized in Taiwan’s education system at that time. I had no other choice but to go for a more practical way. I found the course “Ceramics-Making Methods” taught by Dr. Isomatsu Reizo (one of the only two people with the PhD degree on ceramics in Japan at that time) most interesting to me. He used the chemical composition to explore the fundamental problems of ceramics, and often used the handouts given to Kyoto’s small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) for us as references, while the course “Glaze Recipe” was taught usually on Saturday afternoons by the senior technician of the Kyoto Industrial Test Site, Onishi Shotaro, who studied glaze for 40 years, and helped me establish a solid foundation in the theory and practice of glaze. But I was not satisfied with it. In order to have more relevant experience, I went to Gifu Prefectural Ceramics Research Institute for further research. From raw materials, clay preparation, molding to firing, I could always find an expert to ask and learn from, which made me realize the importance of practical experiences in making traditional ceramics.
The time I returned to Taiwan coincided with the development of national industry promoted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which also established the Ceramic Research Laboratory of the Joint Industrial Research Institute. That was where I worked and shared what I had learned. At that time, the government invited Japanese expert Kubo Yoshizo to take the ceramic industry to the next level. He was stationed in the lab for a long time, and we got to work together very often to facilitate studies and growth of the industry. We did research on how to combine feldspar from Yilan, feldspar from Kinmen and clay produced locally for wider use. We visited local factories and held seminars from time to time, which in turn strengthened my research capabilities and allowed me to put all the theories I knew and my practical experiences together. In terms of learning and creating ceramics, I guess you could see the path I’ve taken to this point of time was very different. Compared with other people who have aways conformed, I am definitely not your “typical ceramic artist”!
In 1975, Lien Ho Industrial and Technological Junior College (National United University now) signed an agreement with Ceramic Research Laboratory as a part of the government policy to prepare students for future jobs in the industry. The Department of Ceramic Engineering was established, and I was responsible for two courses - “Ceramic Workshop Practice” and “Ceramics and Design”. Some of the graduates who continued to pursue the career as a ceramic artist later initiated the “United Ceramics Studio” where I voluntarily taught them the aesthetic concepts and basic ideas of shaping and forming a work, as well as gave the alumni who were employed in the factory some necessary guidance. Maybe that is why they like to call me a teacher who provides “after-sales (teaching) services”. For me, teaching is not just something I am obliged to do, but also something that I feel proud of doing as a graduate from the teacher’s school.
In 1978, I was sent to the Republic of Paraguay to teach ceramics-making techniques just to find there were no ready-made raw materials in the country. I just had to do whatever things needed to get what I want, from spotting the mine, mining, and selecting. Fortunately, my knowledge of theories and practical experiences were enough to get me through this and to overcome the difficulties one by one. I was able to accomplish the mission impossible in many people’s eyes within my four-month term there – to make the very first high-temperature glazed ceramics in Paraguay. I was overjoyed to be able to do something for my country with what I was good at pottery.
In the meantime, I have never one day stopped creating my own works of art and participated in numerous domestic and international exhibitions. After I quit teaching in 1996, I was able to devote all of my time into art creation and held several solo shows. Most of my inspirations come from the world we live in and myriads of things I see in nature, and then after deliberation and reflection, I turn them into various topics that show compassion, praise, encouragement, Zen, or something mixed with humor and criticism. As for my philosophy of art, I will say a lot of what I think are influenced by Paul Klee (1879- 1940), and I have also studied “Bigaku (Aesthetics)” (the 18th edition of 1967) written by the honorary professor of Kyoto University, Ijima Tsutomu for many times to nurture my taste and sense of aesthetics. I spend a lot of time planning before making my work just to achieve the ideal shape in my mind, and even designing and making tools that could be best used for my project.
In addition, I learn painting and pottery to have a better command of colors. In my hands, underglaze, in-glaze or all kinds of colored glazes are thoughtfully stacked and layered like doing impressionism art, so that a neutralization reaction will happen at high temperatures, creating unexpected and magnificent glaze colors. I also like to tailor-make clay bodies for different works just to have unique textures and effects. I hope to showcase the beauty of ceramics that is like no others and its infinite possibilities. To create better ceramic works, I am always looking for something different and breaking new grounds.
Pottery, a colorful result after fire meets clay at high temperatures, and a perfect combination of technology and art. It is both vast and profound. Try to explore it, and you will find yourself drawn into its beauty that is boundless like the starry sky, like the classic of wisdom, and you will never feel tired reading it. I would like to express my gratitude to the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum and the jury members for their hard work, and from the bottom of my heart, I also want to thank all those who have contributed to the forewords. If anyone gets to know the beauty of ceramic art from my work and enters the world of ceramics, that would surely become the proudest achievement I could ever ask for.
86 y/o Uncle Tang
May, 2019