Pottery and ceramics in Taiwan were largely pedestrian and uninspired right up until January 1981, when an R.O.C.-Japan ceramics exhibit at the National Museum of History pointed up the prevailing backwardness and conventionality in the genre. That discovery triggered the development of contemporary pottery and ceramics in Taiwan and spurred many people to take up the art or to open workshops of their own.
Now potters and ceramists on the island face a further challenge--how to advance to the forefront of international trends and restore China's former glory as the ceramics center of the world. The arduousness of the process is difficult for outsiders to imagine, but Taiwan still has no lack of industrious artists tirelessly devoted to achieving that goal. Hsu Ch'ung-lin, born and raised in Taichung, is one example.
It's no exaggeration to call Hsu Ch'ung-lin a pottery fanatic.
When he went to the south of Taiwan once to look for suitable clays, he became so wrapped up in what he was doing that he forgot to call home for three full days and nights. His wife and two daughters were worried frantic, and when he finally returned, "the children had practically disowned him!" Mrs. Hsu relates with a smile.
And his teacher, the well-known potter Lin Pao-chia, recalls that when he first started out he kept at it 12 hours a day every day of the week and spent inordinate sums on firing costs to find out exactly what kind of results were produced under different conditions in different positions in the kiln.
"Mrs. Hsu even came to me on the sly and begged me to help persuade him to stop his experimenting, because the family finances couldn't hold out much longer," says an employee of the Contemporary Ceramic Garden. The noted art critic Sung Lung-fei puts it this way: "Here's someone who has spent ten years of his life, heedless of fame or fortune, assiduously engrossed in the pursuit of the lost art of oil-drop Tenmoku glaze. It really takes all kinds!"
Dressed in plain jeans, tennis shoes, and a gray-green checkered shirt, Hsu looks out of place on the fashionable streets of Taipei but fits right in his hometown of Taichung. Nor does he miss life in the big city. "I don't want to take in students now. I'd rather give myself more time for free creativity," he says. That may lower his income, but his easy-going personality takes things in stride.
Although Hsu was born and raised in Taichung, his forebears hail from Kiangsi province. His father was a soldier who fought all over the mainland before settling in Taiwan in 1949, an experience that made him constantly exhort his son to seek "a settled life."
But for Hsu it wasn't so simple.
Being from a military family, his stern father hoped his son would join the service. "He even sent me to a military academy, but I didn't finish," Hsu says with some embarrassment, explaining that he couldn't take the discipline. "I not only played hooky a lot in junior high--it took me five years to graduate!"
Innate rebelliousness combined with his father's authoritarianism formed a character that is hard to fathom--plain and taciturn on the surface, but complex and changeable inside, with more than a dash of the unexpected.
In 1972 he had just finished his military service, his father had retired and his mother was suffering from cancer when he went to work at a ceramics company in Miaoli in search of a "settled life." "Maybe it was fate," Hsu says, "but ever since then my life has been bound up with ceramics and pottery, and before that I knew nothing about it at all." That was 18 years ago.
He worked at the company for five years but found little that could give him a sense of satisfaction in an environment that "emphasized production and overlooked research." Then he left to form a partnership and set up a factory of his own. "But it was poorly managed, we ran into the world oil crisis, and it shut down after two years," he sighs.
The factory's closing was a serious blow that left him hesitant and irresolute for the next two years. But all that vanished after he began studying under the pottery master Lin Pao-chia.
It was 1979. He was working at another company as a research specialist, often asking older potters for advice, when he came across some ceramic creations of great achievement and originality. "I suddenly burned with a powerful urge to learn and to create," he says. A year later he quit his job and abandoned his "settled life" to devote himself to studying with Lin, and he gave his first show in 1982.
"He's not a product of the academies, and his pieces always have a steady internal quality that reflects the man himself," says Ni Tsai-ch'in, a lecturer in fine arts at Tunghai University and practicing art critic.
His most recent works are a series of shuai-t'ao, or "thrown ceramics." He once picked up some clay and simply broke it apart and tore at it rather than kneading and shaping it deliberately. After being fired in the kiln, the piece displayed a fascinating range of textures, consistencies and thicknesses. Hsu experienced the thrill of unexpected discovery and christened the technique as thrown ceramics.
The art of contemporary pottery and ceramics is still in the beginning stages in Taiwan and public acceptance and appreciation of it is limited. Many people harbor reservations about Hsu's new technique. "He has a lot of patience and determination, but he lacks basic training in aesthetic theory and his sensitivity to form needs to be strengthened," Sung Lung-fei avers. "He still has to be tested by time."
Will his latest step turn out a success? Hsu himself is hesitant to say. "I've just started out. I'm still at the stage of experimenting and feeling my way." This after 18 years of labor in the art.
[Picture Caption]
The beauty of oil-drop glaze lies in its granular effect, which resembles "pearls of different sizes falling on a tray of jade," but fine pieces are hard to come by. Hsu Ch'ung-lin labored many years studying the techniques of firing it before obtaining works good enough to show.
Cloudy flambe combines rose and cerulean to create varied and often surprising effects. (from the collection of Edward S. J. Chen)
A leopard spot oil-drop piece (left) and an oil-drop wine jug (right) with the eerie atmosphere of a dark forest differ from the classic elegance of conventional oil-drop. (from the collection of Edward S. J. Chen)
Hsu's bell-nipple ash glaze is popular with ceramicists.
Acacia ash glaze, which incorporates acacia tree ash in the glaze matrix, is another product of Hsu's research. (from the collection of Edward S. J. Chen)
Ash glaze produces such different results as "sweat-bead" ash glaze (left) and snowdrift ash glaze (right). The latter symbolizes the drops of perspiration that form with hard work.
Shuai-t'ao or "tossed pottery," is an attempt by Hsu to create ceramics using free, unforced shaping techniques that bring out the nature of ceramic itself.
Cloudy flambe combines rose and cerulean to create varied and often surprising effects. （from the collection of Edward S. J. Chen）
A leopard spot oil-drop piece （left） and an oil-drop wine jug （right） with the eerie atmosphere of a dark forest differ from the classic elegance of conventional oil-drop. （from the collection of Edward S. J. Chen）
Hsu's bell-nipple ash glaze is popular with ceramicists.
Acacia ash glaze, which incorporates acacia tree ash in the glaze matrix, is another product of Hsu's research. （from the collection of Edward S. J. Chen）
Ash glaze produces such different results as "sweat-bead" ash glaze （left） and snowdrift ash glaze （right）. The latter symbolizes the drops of perspiration that form with hard work.
Ash glaze produces such different results as "sweat-bead" ash glaze （left） and snowdrift ash glaze （right）. The latter symbolizes the drops of perspiration that form with hard work.
Shuai-t'ao or "tossed pottery," is an attempt by Hsu to create ceramics using free, unforced shaping techniques that bring out the nature of ceramic itself.
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