Chinaware
In today's issue, we are visiting Fu Changmin, the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project "Jingdezhen Handmade Porcelain Skills - Pastel Porcelain", in her studio, a simple conversation, but with a different life experience.
Mr. Fu Changmin, born in Jingdezhen in 1968, is a native of Jingdezhen and the inheritor of a ceramic family with a history of 100 years. And the pastel craft that Mr. Fu Changmin is engaged in, just like herself, is gentle and elegant, delicate and subtle.
The pastel process is in addition to the enamel color, and the Qing court created another colored porcelain. Arsenic-containing foundation is applied to the burned tire glaze, and the pigment is applied and washed off with a pen, and the color is powdered due to the emulsification effect of arsenic. It sprouted in the Kangxi period and gradually flourished in the Yongzheng Dynasty. Because the ancient court utensils were mainly based on the emperor's preferences, the craftsmen did not have any space for the expression of ideological interests, so after the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the mind was emancipated, and many people began to create ceramics to vent their personal emotions and express their experience and cognition of things, so pastel has a larger creative space.
Fu Changmin's work
Interweave
If life is sometimes like a predetermined fate, then Mr. Fu Changmin's life seems to be destined to be intertwined with ceramics. Since Fu Changmin's great-grandfather, who was engaged in the ceramic trade in Tianjin, this family has never been separated from ceramics.
Teacher Fu Changmin and his father
Fu Changmin's father and grandfather are both old craftsmen engaged in ceramic production, the rendering of the family atmosphere, for Fu Changmin's childhood, the most romantic thing I have ever seen is the companionship of skills. Due to the extremely clear division of labor in Jingdezhen ceramics, Fu Changmin's grandfather specialized in ceramic painting, while his grandmother filled in the porcelain painted by his grandfather. The husband and wife jointly run a red shop, the so-called red shop, which is a shop for painting porcelain, perhaps because of the Chinese's admiration for red, so painting red refers to glaze painting. And Mr. Fu's lover's mother used to be in this red shop, learning from her grandmother to learn coloring. Teacher Fu Changmin said that grandma's pastel coloring is first-class.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to the public-private partnership policy, Mr. Fu Changmin's red shop was merged, and the person in charge of this matter happened to be the father of Mr. Fu's lover, so Mr. Fu Changmin would always joke that her husband's family had given her studio to a joint venture, and Mr. Fu Changmin's lover would jokingly respond, "I was also given a joint venture by you"
Family
Perhaps it is because of his own family, and ceramics are inextricably linked, in the heart of Mr. Fu Changmin deeply believes that porcelain, like something soaked in the blood. It's not just a tedious craft, it's a childhood time, memories with family. In Mr. Fu Changmin's heart, his father is a person with high artistic attainments, and compared to his grandfather, his father is more serious, constantly trying and exploring, so he has countless excellent works. To this day, the blue and white plum vats created by his father still stand quietly in the hall of Zhongnanhai, and the picturesque stationery that Comrade Deng Xiaoping gave to then Japan Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka when he visited Japan was also made by his father. It is because of his father's strictness of craftsmanship. Since childhood, my father has taught me by word and deed, not missing a bit, to what extent is the best pen to use, where to put the pen and where to receive, the dryness, wetness and intensity of the pigment, how to grind more delicate pigments, and even sometimes, a stack of pigments to grind for three months. All this may not be taught by a teacher in a school in a few simple lessons, it is a memory and habit that runs through life.
Fu Changmin's work
Therefore, Mr. Fu Changmin has always believed that family inheritance is an important form of skill inheritance, because it is not only necessary to teach by word and deed, but also to be meticulous, and even to the smallest detail, which is not possible in school education, and this kind of habit soaked in bone marrow can create a real craftsman spirit.
state of mind
In addition to the family tradition, Mr. Fu Changmin's love for porcelain has another important reason, no matter what kind of craft of ceramics, firing, always shows the impermanence of the world. You never know what the final result will be until the kiln is opened. It is this uncertainty that has laid the foundation for Mr. Fu's interest in ceramics, and things with a sense of mystery are more charming. Although the pastel technique is based on Chinese ink pen flower and bird painting, ceramic overglaze painting is much more difficult than painting on rice paper. It requires a long accumulation of experience to ensure the mastery of the material, the pigment of pastel painting is mineral, which is diluted with camphor oil after oil as a binder, so it is viscous when dipped in the pen, it is smudged if it is too oily, it can't be painted if it's too dry, and people with no experience can't even draw lines.
Fu Changmin's work
However, even if you have mastered the properties of the material and can paint freely, sometimes it is not as satisfactory as you want, and in the calcination process of 1300 degrees Celsius, you can't predict which delicate color transitions will lose color in the high temperature, and all the delicate places are the artist's observation and expression of the world, so he is constantly looking for pigments. Keep trying and trying to reconcile the best art in the end. As for ceramic art, once fired, the artist's emotions are condensed on the porcelain, and there is no external factor that can change the result after 1300 degrees of calcination.
Creation
For the creation and development of ceramic art, Fu Changmin teacher has her own unique understanding, she firmly believes that the accumulation of any art, behind it is ultimately philosophy, is based on the philosophy of this nation, therefore, the core of artistic creation, is the imprint and inheritance of national culture.
As some people say, many traditional craftsmen have lost the ability to create, and the core of art is to touch the bypass, therefore, the inheritance of traditional crafts requires not only the imitation of traditional skills, but also the need to constantly perceive, continue to learn, continue to explore, and maintain the freshness of things, in order to perceive the infinite vastness of the world.
This is an impetuous era, whether it is an artist or an ordinary person, precipitation and accumulation have become particularly rare, so many people always feel that today's craftsmanship is not as good as it once was, in fact, to this day, the progress of technology, the development of skills has never stopped, however, many people have lost their state of mind, lost the ancients' gentle and quiet, natural philosophy.
