"Clay is honest and simple; it has an interesting, quality feel; it's very friendly, very human," she says.
After graduating from college with a degree in design, Lien Pao-ts'ai studied pottery and enameling and married a potter, so taking up pottery was no surprise.
"I wanted to express the joys, the sorrows, the anger, all the emotions of life and its aspects," she explains. Before, when she had two children to raise, it was hard to find time for pottery. "I was very serious then," she says. "My conceptions were full of suffering. It was tough."
Now that they've grown up, a burden's been lifted. "I can let myself go," she says. "I'm experimenting with colors and doing whatever I want." And her works contain more warmth and joy.
Besides pottery, she fills her days with reading, drawing, writing, and music. "This lady's ambitious," a friend joshes her. Fortunately, her husband is in the same line; otherwise, she'd have "run off" for sure.
Whether with respect to pottery or to life, Lien Pao-ts'ai is a case of "where there's love, there are no regrets." If you wanted to make it complicated you could, but it's really very simple.