This little sugar bowl is a piece of Chinese glazed and hand painted porcelain, made for the western market, in China - I would guess in the 1940's - and sold through a Macau exporter. It was bought as part of a set long ago broken and disposed of, and regarded as a functional item, until it was passed to me; since then, it has become part of a collection of ceramic objects I love and cherish. Pottery, however fine or rough, is breakable. You buy or inherit or receive a piece of ceramic, you use it, and eventually it breaks. While you handle it, if it is special, it evokes an emotional response; it is a presence, it was meant to be what it is by a person unknown - a potter who handed on his or her vision executed in a magical material. Pottery, the more you know it the more you notice what an essential life-company it is. Even mass-produced pieces from Wedgwood or Limoges are special and chipped or cracked pieces, are often kept on for generations as proof of existence. My sugar bowl does not contain sugar. It contains a green jade necklace and earrings. Every time I open it, it yields the extra excitement of the green dull jade beauty within its surprisingly pure white interior. One day it will shatter and I will have to throw away the pieces and turn to another container for my jewel. This is not a two-way relationship: the sugar bowl does not love me as I love it; it does not reciprocate my admiration and the person who made and painted it does not know about me. The green dragon sugar bowl was mass produced. It was painted quite quickly by someone who had to earn a meagre existence out of painting porcelain sets as uniformly as possible, in a particular tradition. The story that makes this item special is mine alone. I can chose to end it. A piece of ceramic that has been individually made, such as this may be more difficult to break and let go.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
April 2024
Categories
|