GLAZE
Xiao Xue's School
Eventually I asked Xiao Xue, "How do you go about getting the glaze to look the way it does?"
"God knows!" was her immediate reply.
I understood. This response came to define my relationship to the way in which I approached working with glazes: "I just do it. Then wait to see how it turns out..." That was what Xiao Xue meant with her answer, and so that's that how I have continued to work.
Serendipity is based on respect for craftsmanship and tradition. Whereas an experienced ceramicist achieves his or her intended result in a single firing, I take a chance. I stumble on, out into the unknown, firing and firing and firing again until I'm satisfied. As a rule, the result can never be considered a failure since I don't set out with a plan for what the "right" result might be. If anyone asks me about the glaze, why or how it looks the way it does, I simply answer, "It's Xiao Xue glaze...".
Text from the catalogue "... And so it was Night!", Museum of Movement, Stockholm Sweden 2016
小雪的学校
最终，我禁不住问小雪："你是怎么使釉产生这种效果的？"
"鬼才知道！"她不加思索地回答道。
我理解她的意思。她的答复逐渐定义了我与釉之间的关系--凭感觉做，然后看效果如何......。这就是小雪要表达的意思，也是我的工作方式。
意外发现的基础建立于对工艺和传统的尊重。有经验的陶艺家烧窑时可以一次性达到预期效果，而我则要碰运气。我蹒跚行进，走进未知领域，烧一次不成就两次，两次不成就三次，直至满意为止。
通常，无论最后结果如何，结果都不会被定义为"失败"，因为我没有预先制定可以接受的标准。如果有人问我如何烧出这种釉彩，为什么釉是这种颜色的，我就回答说"这是小雪釉......。"
The Black glaze
During
my most recent sojourn in Jingdezhen in the spring and summer of 2015
my focus was firmly on black glaze. Not, however, because black is the
most obvious expression of "night"; it was more a matter of satisfying
my curiosity by working with a medium that others have been using for
more than a thousand years. The passion I felt for working with black in
this way opened up new avenues for me; I saw more, I saw a little
further and in a little more depth. I discovered tradition through the
new expressions that are being created today. I learned terms such as
"tian mu", "temoku" and "jian yao". And in the black glaze I also saw
the reflection of the greater world around me - all the things about
which I need to form an opinion, all the things I need to take a stand
for or against as part of the long process
of learning what it means to be human.
"... And so it was Night.!"
Text from the catalogue "... And so it was Night!", Museum of Movement, Stockholm Sweden 2016
2015年春夏季，我最近在景德镇的逗留期间，我的艺术焦点是黑釉。当然，这并非因为黑色是最直接的表现"夜晚"的颜色，而是因为我对这种一千多年来很多人一直采用的媒介饶有兴趣。黑色给我带来激情的同时也为我把新的门路打开：使我看见的东西更多，看得更加透彻和深远。通过使用今天演绎中的辞令，我发现了传统。我学到了新的词汇，如"天目"、 "建窑"。通过黑釉，我看到了身边更为广阔的世界映像：所有需要自己去理解并定义的事物，和做人的漫长旅程中需要学会支持和反对的一切。
"......于是，夜幕降临了。"
Words of encouragement
Early on a Saturday morning I bump into Liu Xi by one of the little food stalls on Xinchangdonglu, the street outside the Sculpture Factory, Diaosu Ci Chang, in Jingdezhen. I tell her that I still haven't managed to get any of the black glazes to turn out exactly how I want them to, and she advises me to buy glaze from one of the other shops. When I explain that I've already done the rounds of all the shops, she merely shrugs her shoulders and says with cool indifference, what does it matter that she's been trained at CAFA, the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, or that she's been working with ceramics full-time for seven years; she still knows nothing.
Liu Xi intends her reply to be interpreted as words of encouragement.
鼓励的话语
一个周六的大清早，我在新厂东路上的一个小吃摊上碰到了柳溪。这条路在景德镇雕塑瓷厂外面。我告诉她自己还未能把任何黑釉作品烧成预期效果，她建议我从其他的店铺买釉彩。当我解释说我已经去过好多店铺时，她耸耸肩，有些黯然地说，虽然自己是从北京中央美院出来的，而且已经花了七年时间全职创做陶瓷作品，可惜有什么用呢？到现在为止，她依旧对陶瓷釉彩一无所知。
柳溪想用这样的方式来鼓励我。
