Having understood that the Chinese delegation who attended ‘From Oven and Kiln 2018’ are all really interested in Ceramics, and that they have brought a collection of 300 Yixing teapots from Beijing for a four-month exhibition at the Vancouver Poly Culture Art Center, I knew I must get to see them. Yesterday I took transit in to downtown Vancouver, hopping out of the Burrard Skytrain station and found the Art Center a block away on the North-West corner of Hornby and West Pender streets.
The tea-pots will be shown until May 31st so do find time to see these extraordinary contemporary Yixing tea-pots. They have been painstakingly made by hand (no wheel work) in traditional ways, using only the very prized Zisha clay. All the pieces are displayed in tall glass cases so there’s no touching, or dust. Some have been made by National Cultural Masters, some by Provincial Masters and some by other artists. All are said to be different although one can see an artist will choose a preferred shape or theme. Men and women make these tea-pots.
Enjoy my selection of photos. Interestingly all face to the left. I wonder why? Comments on the pots or corrections to my notes are welcome. I haven’t credited any of the artists but perusal of the catalogue will give that information.
I was offered a huge ‘catalogue’ which is in fact a hard-cover book with each artist featured on two pages with his/her work. The tea-pots are for sale – but I did not enquire about prices. A friend has just returned from Hong Kong and she tells me that Yixing tea-pot prices have sky-rocketed. Any visitors to this gallery are offered a catalogue to take home, so do. We are enjoying studying the artists and their work here at home.
A young man offered to give me a tour (I was the only visitor for a while) so I was reminded that the ‘purple’ clay is the favourite, but that red, green and buff clays are also used. The pots are not glazed and the dense stoneware apparently is slightly porous so that the flavoured oil in a particular tea can be retained, and there may be a tea-pot reserved for each tea served. The tea is drunk from glazed porcelain cups which do not retain any tea flavour. My guide was a Burnaby-born Emily Carr University graduate, who does of course offer the tour in Mandarin or English. He graduated in photography, not ceramics, but certainly understands and appreciates the Yixing ware from China.
When this show comes down it will be followed by a show of oil paintings, so this might be a gallery to check out once in a while.
There was a fine youtube video playing while I walked around the show. This is the link to the English language version of ‘Millennium Purple’.
Here is Poly Culture’s website description of the current show, and the invitation.
http://www.polyculture.us/event/essence-zisha-eastern-intangible-cultural-heritage-yixing-stoneware/
After I left downtown Vancouver I took the 50 bus over to Granville Island so that I could make my way to Performance Works to see the current show of Korean ceramics. That show ends on Friday May 18th, with a workshop with the Icheon Korean masters over the weekend so there are only two more days to see the show. See the Crafted Vancouver.com website for details.
