2025 Year in Review

The antique-glaze ceramic trials I had planned to stop nonetheless continued as usual through 2025. In the first half of the year I fired rose purple-gold glaze, with the main works being the Purple-Gold Auspicious Bowl, the Purple-Gold Cup series, and Purple-Gold Teapots, among others. In the second half of the year, my plan to develop a persimmon-red glaze without animal bone ash did not succeed, but instead I developed an even more refined fish-scale glaze (ice-snow red glaze) than before.

Purple-gold oil-spot glaze can be achieved through several routes: first, applying No. 07 glaze to No. 3 or No. 4 clay body; second, applying No. 07 glaze to an ice-type clay body; third, applying No. 07 glaze to a frozen-jade porcelain body; and fourth, applying No. 07 glaze to a certain Jingdezhen clay body. Beyond that, different firing methods can also produce a purple-gold glaze surface.

The attempt to develop a persimmon-red glaze without animal bone ash failed — quite a peculiar result, since simply substituting synthetic bone ash for animal bone ash, that one difference alone, was enough to prevent the persimmon-red effect from forming. Yet in the course of firing, I stumbled onto a whole series of fish-scale glazes (ice-snow red glaze), which suited clay bodies No. 1 through No. 4 equally well, each with its own distinct character — truly a case of “planting willows without intending to, and finding them grown into shade.” A new cup shape I developed this year didn’t turn out well in either iron-red glaze or gold glaze, but its visual effect in ice-snow red glaze was quite good; the main works include teapot coasters, cups, and the like. It really does prove the old saying: everything is arranged for the best — just go with the flow!

I also fired a certain amount of iron-red glaze, and even ground up two batches of No. 816B glaze hoping to replicate a fruit bowl I had fired a couple of years earlier — but that, too, did not fully succeed. The motivation was that an alumna from Henan, after visiting the studio, said the fruit bowl’s glaze was her favorite; but times and circumstances had moved on, and replicating it turned out to belong irretrievably to the past.

In truth, I stopped working for a long stretch this year. A flood in June submerged and ruined all the glaze materials and equipment on the ground floor of the workshop, and I took it as a sign to stop. Yet a few months later I bought new materials, repaired the equipment, and started up again — though even in the second half of the year I kept starting and stopping.

Something researched for decades is genuinely hard to set down. In recent years I have kept hoping to pass on what little I’ve learned to whoever is meant to receive it, but there has been no word of anyone. This path of exploration truly isn’t an easy one to walk — let it go with the wind.