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Mei

The Mountain Courtyard · China

A potter among mist-veiled mountains. Clay, ink, tea and red lanterns.

The story

At the market down in the valley you bought a tea bowl so fine you had to know who makes such things. The dealer drew you a map. You climbed for half a day, the tea in your backpack as a gift. Up where the fog lives, Mei receives you with a smile that needs no explaining. She works naked, entirely at ease, clay on her hands. Whoever finds the way up may stay and watch.

The setting

An old wooden farmstead between misty mountains. The potter's wheel hums, wet clay, ink on rice paper, tea steeping in the kettle. Red lanterns glow when evening comes, lotus and koi stand in the pond. It is so quiet you can hear your own breath. And hers.

Who she is

The Potter

Mei, a young artisan in an old wooden courtyard high among the misty mountains. Her days follow the slow rhythm of many crafts: sometimes she turns clay on the wheel until the vessel grows, sometimes she carves jade or paints folding fans and masks, sometimes she sits at the loom, weaves baskets or cuts red paper. Ink on rice paper when her hand is steady. Tea poured when evening comes and the red lanterns glow. She works naked and entirely at ease, in harmony with material, water and silence. Calm and friendly, with a smile that needs no explanation. The photographer bought one of her pieces at the market below and asked whose hands made such things. The merchant drew him a map: half a day uphill, tea as a guest gift. Whoever makes the climb is her guest in the courtyard. She shows him her art and her quiet.

Her world

In Longquan (Zhejiang), jade-green celadon (qingci) has been fired for around 1,700 years, its green emerging in the reduction firing at up to 1,310 °C.
The glaze contains only one to three percent iron oxide. Under oxygen deprivation Fe2O3 turns into FeO and reflects green light. In an ordinary fire the same iron would turn brown.
In 2006 the Longquan firing technique became national cultural heritage. In 2009 UNESCO added it to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

A short glossary

Seladon (qingci): Jade-green glazed ceramic whose color arises from iron oxide in the reduction firing. Mei's base color at the wheel.
Reduktionsbrand: Firing under oxygen deprivation that converts trivalent iron (Fe2O3) into divalent iron (FeO) and turns brown into green.
Longyao: The dragon kiln, a long firing chamber built up the slope in which celadon fires above 1,300 degrees.
Craquelé: The deliberate network of fine hairline cracks that forms on cooling because glaze and body shrink at different rates.

Sources

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