hardest part of my trip... saying goodbye to jingdezhen.

i knew this time would come, about 3 days into my stay in jingdezhen i started to dread the day i would have to leave.

our send off celebration...

after i quickly finished glazing my two line sets, i ran back to the dorm.. showered and met the group in food alley for dinner. directly from there we walked to the big beer place... we had a pretty large group.. myself, boomer, nick, becky, carman, andres, jake, chris, fei, patrick, jeremy, xi ming(spelling??), and dryden. always starting a bit slow, something always seems to happen at the big beer place. this time a woman went into labor. the best part of this is that we had no clue what was happening until we seen an ambulance pull out of the hospital, literally directly across the street from the big beer place. it pulled right up, and the rushed in with a gurney... carried her out and drove right back, across the street, to the hospital. would have probably been quicker to just run across the sreet.

beer-munchies hit... and fei ran out and grabbed some snacks. eggplant, sea clams, oysters, and duck neck. none of which i would have eaten before this trip. eggplant i have had already and loved. i started with the small clams. i was convinced i would hate them... to my surprise they were delicious and the texture didn’t bother me at all(not too boingy). then they had to convince me to try the oysters... which had been cooked with garlic or something because they were delicious! ... the duck neck was gone by the time i started to feel adventurous. i think i forgot to mention that i had squid earlier in the day at korean bbq... talk about an adventurous day!

we were determined to get the party started so me and carman walked down the street picked up something like six--four packs of dice. we started playing some sort of dice game... kind of like the card game bullsh*t. but with dice. fun... but hard to get everyone involved. so patrick taught us another game involving 6 small glasses, endless amounts of beer and a die. start with each glass filled in a row, then roll the die 1-6, which ever you roll.. you drink, your turn continues until you roll the number of an empty glass. then its the next person’s turn.. refill each glass except for the last one the previous person drank.. if someone goes through all six.. they get to make a rule. i was the only one to accomplish this. mr party man, patrick, had a brilliant idea to buy some bijou, a big bottle--a little better quality than what we‘ve ever had. and fill one of the glasses with a shot instead of beer. soon the table got rowdy and nick and chris were doing hand stands... talks of places to park bikes... it got a little blurry from there on. i took some videos.. and have yet to look through them...

some people drifted out.. i had to say goodbye to fei. it was really nice to meet her. she speaks good english and it was nice to be able to hang out with her a few times and get to know her. i wish i would have had more time to hang out with her, she is such a sweetheart. hopefully she will still be here when i return. =)

we closed the big beer place down again, then headed to bbq AGAIN. lol sooo good. there was more bijou drinking there... i was a sleepy panda on the walk home, ha. but all in all it was a great night with some great people. i will never forget these times, and i hope to keep in touch.

the next day we had korean bbq for lunch with li chao before he left for beijing to meet up with the summer group 2 (shoji’s group) we would be meeting up with them in xi’an in a couple days. the rest of the day was filled with packing... NO FUN.

xiao min fired the small gas kiln... 8am-2pm. and after going to dinner (downtown for donkey again) it was time to unload... so at 8 we cracked it and around 10 pm we unloaded... super fast, right???

so my set of 5 (china line one) turned out pretty good. for it being my first experience with decals and with the limited time i had to glaze, im pretty happy with it.. as for my china line two the set of 3.. the glaze didn’t work out so well. i think the time factor had lot to do with that.. i applied a latex resist over top the black glaze before putting on the decals, i applied it to quickly after spraying the glaze... when i pulled it off some of the glaze came with it. then i sprayed clear over it all. i did this bc the test i had run with our first firing i put latex over decals... and it pulled some of that off... and i wanted the decals on these to be as detailed as possible... what i should have done was applied the decals first sprayed clear all over... then latex over where the decals were.. then sprayed black. that way if anything would be removed by the latex it would have been some clear. that i think would have solved that problem... but hey, i figured out what works... or i guess what doesn’t. im going to bring home the set and try to re-fire it.. but im happy with the firing and the knowledge i have gained from it. there’s some pics below.

we all headed back to finish packing. UGH.

woke up early, we were having a bus pick us up at 8 am for a 4 hr bus ride to nanchang then a 2 hr flight to xian.

leaving jingdezhen was hard. but the only thing that made the departure a bit easier was that i know i will return. =)

before we left i headed to the studio to drop off a couple little pots... maybe they’ll stick around the studio.. i also left an extremely big lighter.. had to leave a few pieces of me behind. im glad i went back there bc i was able to say goodbye to sagger and la fong.

xiao min, nick and chris were at the dorms to say goodbye. nick is staying till december, im bummed that he’s not coming for the rest of the trip bc he was fun to have around, chris is done in jingdezhen and is heading to korea for a bit. --GOOD LUCK wherever your next venture takes you!-- i hope to keep in contact with the both of them... great times had. =)

gave hugs said see ya laters, and hopped on the bus... jingdezhen was the most influential part of this trip for me. making myself at home, in the dorm.. studio.. and the city. making friends with other clay ppl, la fong, and the mamma’s of the kitchen, food alley people, and general store employees.. within my work i expect to see some changes.. just from being exposed to all of the possibilities. having so many resources right at your finger tips forces you to consider the possibilities within your work. i plan on looking into getting specific decals made for my line sets when i get home... the idea of maybe one day making molds of these vessels... i know its going to be a bit more difficult back at home, and i can only expect it to be more expensive.. but now that i know this is all here... when i return it will be easier for me to do. 3 weeks just wasn’t long enough to use all of these resources’ to their fullest. i will be back.

i WILL be back.

steph.