Big Tiles

This is one tile, in the right you can see Maggie our guide walking into the kiln room. Beside her is on full tile. She told us that the factory has an 80% retention rate. One plain celedon tile costs 4000 RMB. We went to 5 different tile factories, they are all within walking distance of each other. Below is a video of how they roll out tiles. He does about 60 tiles a day, I can't help but wonder where is all this ceramic work going?

Motorcycle taxi

5 of us went to the Big tile Factory (they were huge, pictures to come later). We couldn't all fit in the taxi so I took a motorcycle taxi, Maggie our guide and translator told him where to go and negotiated the price, it was 5 yuan, less than 1 dollar.

Underglaze Overglaze Factory

We went to the Underglaze/Overglaze Factory. Maggie our guide and translator brought us to the workshop to see how the underglaze papers are made. Each one of the workers makes anywhere from 1500 to 2000 sheets a day! We then went into the shop to buy some sheets, they were very cheap. Smaller sheets were 1 yuan a peice larger ones were 4.

Govt. officials and breakfast

Some Government officials came by to the big sculpture space with a television crew.

Here is where many of the people in the Sculpture factory have breakfast, it looks more scary than it is and the food is good

Factory

The staff here at the PWS has been superb. I was able to tag along to a factory visit on official design studio business. The Design studio is having a cup and saucer design made for an Australian artist. We met with the factory manager to talk shop and were then give a tour of the factory. Here is the storage rooms. I wasn't able to take photos of the rooms they work in.




When I was told that Jingdezhen makes a million pieces of ceramics a day, I wrote it off as local boasting pride. After seeing the storage room here I have become a believer.

Jo Jo Jo / 9 9 9

There were quite a few people leaving Jingdezhen to go off to bigger and better things. There was a big send off bash at Jo Jo Jo's (999) for them. The first photo is Brad and Kim, Brad has been the Tech at WVU in Jingdezhen and his wife Kim have been here 9 months. They are moving back to the states. The next photo is some of the WVU students. Third Photo is Dryden, the design studio manager, and Kerrie who is from Ireland and is traveling all over asia. Kerrie and I had a great time talking about Irish beers and that I need to see an Irish wedding if I really want to see the Irish party. Jo Jo Jos has draft beer, a precious commodity in Jingdezhen and we did our fair share of making it even more rare.

WVU Facility in Jingdezhen

On my morning bike ride I also ride past the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute University where WVU has there campus. Garth Johnson of Extreme Craft Fame is part of the WVU contingent and he was kind enough to show me around.

That day the students were getting a trimming demo. This is a picture of the trimmer sharpening his tools. Unfortunately I had to get off to the Pottery workshop so I couldn't stay and watch.