China fireworks: Sebastian Blackie finds magic in an experience in China.

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MY FIRST ENCOUNTER with China was magic. There is a mountain in China that has vanished. At Gaoling (literally translated as 'high mountain') it is estimated that 1,880,000 tonnes of natural porcelain body were mined by hand during the Ming and Qing dynasties and carried on the backs of men via a steep and narrow path to the wharfs at Dongbu to be ferried by river to Jingdezhen. In Jingdezhen the material was processed and the products exported. Much of Gaoling is now in the grand houses and museums of Europe in the form of pots. But finally, Gaoling, the mountain, collapsed; quite literally it was undermined and is no more.

From the word 'Gaoling' we derive 'Kaolin' but today a China stone is used to produce a remarkably versatile porcelain body. This raw material, which supplies the porcelain industry in Jingdezhen, is still crushed to powder by wooden hammer mills as it has been for many centuries. By levigation the fine clay is separated from the quartz and run off to stiffen before being formed into brick (a unit of measurement) and dried prior to transportation. The Chinese for brick is 'petuntze' from which we derive the English word 'porcelain'. The Jesuits documenting the industry misunderstood the word for the material we in the West associate with refinement, thinness and translucency which in fact means brick not porcelain in Mandarin.

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Jingdezhen porcelain is better known in the West as Nanking, the port down river from which it was exported to Europe. It is a remarkable material and, unlike any I have encountered elsewhere, will tolerate a wide range of sections within the same piece. Despite substantial shrinkage when fired, the factories at Jingdezhen produce pots that are taller than a man. During the command economy of the Mao era, Jingdezhen was characterised by massive factories dominated by great smoke stacks for the polluting coal fired kilns. All but a few of the chimneys have gone and the former factories have been occupied by numerous small specialist ceramic workshops and associated businesses producing brushes, modelling tools, etc. Most specialise, so it is a common sight in the city to see pots and sculptures being wheeled on handcarts from one workshop to another through the busy, porcelain lamppost-lined streets. One workshop offers a slightly surreal experience by specialising in models of communist party heroes, lines and lines of little Maos; most workshops, however, are involved in the reproduction of somewhat debased Ming dynasty designs or contemporary kitch all too familiar in the West.

Some individuals have recognised Jingdezhen's enormous potential in the new more liberal China. The energetic and visionary potter Carolyn Cheng has established an experimental workshop in the heart of the industrial area, which is similar to other schemes she oversees in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Cheng was fortunate to have secured the British potter Takashi Yasuda as director. Yasuda has a committed and talented team of assistants. Young Chinese ceramic artists who, with his support and wide experience, are developing as independent and creative thinkers, a quality so necessary for the country's future but, until recently, liable to repression from the still all powerful communist party.

The workshop offers a residence program in spacious well-equipped, clean and, best of all, air-conditioned studios. There is also a shop, excellent gallery space and a restaurant for residents and staff offering delicious food and an opportunity to socialise as well as present slide shows of each other's work. Although the workshop has only existed for a couple of years it is already a key international meeting place for potters. I met the American Barbara Diduk again after 35 years. She had been a student at Farnham School of Art in England when I first joined the teaching staff. She is now professor at Dickenson College, Pennsylvania, USA, and was, at the time of my trip, completing a fascinating sociological, as well as ceramic project where she had invited a large number of local decorators to reproduce, in turn, a design based on the memory of previous artists' work; a kind of Chinese pottery whispers.

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Felicity Aylieff, senior tutor at the Royal College of Art in London was also utilising local expertise in 'big-ware' during a sabbatical that was enabling her to develop a new way of working. I met Kevin White again, Associate Professor at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) on a recognisance trip and from Sydney, Roger Law of British TV satire Spitting Image fame. All seemed to understand Jingdezhen's potential and Law was embarking on a tableware commission that recognises the city's indigenous production values. The city's annual ceramic festival drew in other visitors I knew from my past.

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The experimental pottery workshop is a vibrant place to work but it is possible to experience a different type of residency in Jingdezhen. At the far end of the small village of San Bao, just outside the town, is a complex of traditional lovingly-restored wooden buildings set in the rustic beauty of neat paddy fields surrounded by misty tree-clad mountains. This quiet haven is run by Jiansheng (Jackson) Li, a Chinese who returned from a career in Canada to establish the residential workshops, a museum of ancient pots and other exquisite artifacts and a restaurant serving excellent locally grown food. San Bao is an opportunity to consider China's past--a retreat, a place to reflect as well as to make.

My trip to Jingdezhen was at Takashi Yasuda's invitation to demonstrate paper kilns as part of the city's annual festival. As ever, working with new materials is a challenge made more so by China's high levels of humidity. With the help of students from the city institute we made two types of paper kiln. The first was built with paper and porcelain slip on a raft made from green bamboo poles. The second was made entirely from rolled newspaper. All work was raw porcelain, which I had never fired in these types of kiln before. Every pot survived. In the first kiln one porcelain bowl was even deformed by the heat. The rolled newspaper kilns however failed to reach the target 1150[degrees]C due to premature collapse of the cardboard covers, which were unable to stand up, literally, to the high humidity. These covers, formed from cardboard and coated with slip and paper, normally provide stability and control the air and thus the rate of burning.

The kilns always promote speculation and on this occasion prompted an invitation from Jiansheng Li for me to return and make kilns from rice straw rope at San Bao. It is an exciting challenge and completely in tune with the paper kiln philosophy to use locally resourced materials and to adapt the techniques of other crafts. Our conversation turned to my dream of a flying kiln which exploits the paper kilns' relatively low weight together with its considerable waste heat. Jackson suggested that the local paper lantern makers might be able to make a paper hot air balloon for this purpose.

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The idea has a serious intention. It is not a trick but a magical fire work. An idea about what firing symbolises that, like a game of Chinese whispers, an idea that changes and evolves. It seems to defy the possible but if the Chinese can move mountains then making kilns fly with straw and paper should be just a piece of cake.

Sebastian Blackie is Professor of Ceramics at the University of Derby, UK, where he runs an MA program in art and design. He is author of Dear Mr Leach (ISBN 0-7136-6942-X) in which paper kilns are described in more detail. Caption title page: Big-ware workshop, Jingdezhen.