The Vision of Change
Jiang Maxiang
“When we hear the term ‘wood-fired ceramics,’ this is exactly what appears in our minds: a viscous, beaded glassy glaze that drips downward, or a rough surface texture dusted with ash—only occasional flashes of flame-color glittering within a brown-toned symphony.” This is Irving’s description of wood-firing. I find the word “symphony” particularly apt for describing wood-fired ceramics.
Irving’s phenomenological account of wood-firing immediately brings to mind Gaston Bachelard’s writings, which grasp the object of matter through intuition. Meanwhile, Heidegger writes in The Origin of the Work of Art: “Art sets up a world and sets forth the earth.” Art often embodies a spirit of “opening up heaven and earth”—in other words, a true work, regardless of scale, possesses a soul. This point aligns precisely with the art of wood-fired ceramics; one could even say that wood-fired ceramic works possess an innate artistic character.
Yet those who can truly appreciate the art of wood-fired ceramics remain a small minority; the audience is still limited. At least in our country, with its long history of porcelain, smooth and glossy wares remain the mainstream, while an appreciation of wood-fired ceramics is a sensibility acquired through learning.
Mr Jiang Maxiang in his mountain studio
The art of wood-fired pottery is the crystallization of the interplay among fire, ash, and the vessel. The kiln is the environment in which the vessel comes into being—much like vegetation shaped by different soils, climates, and levels of moisture. Nick Collins describes wood-firing as “control within loss of control—if that makes any sense.” Perhaps from this perspective, practitioners of wood-firing resemble farmers working the fields: they attempt to cultivate a positive environment that will ultimately exceed the boundaries of human control.
In this sense, the life of flame is not so different from the life of saplings, tender shoots, weeds, and moss—drifting freely in motion, constrained yet never truly obedient. The environment of wood-firing is almost a self-contained ecosystem; ash and embers are merely a single element within an infinite set of variables. We must also consider the atmosphere: Is the kiln oxygen-starved? What is the clay body itself?
Dimensions: 25 cm × 25 cm × 38 cm
Material: Ceramic
Year of Creation: 2016
What is distinctive about the aesthetics of wood-fired pottery lies precisely in an inner capacity we possess: our yearning for art. Yet more importantly, I believe its power to awaken and move us comes from its relationship with change and with time. You do not need to know anything about wood-firing—indeed, you do not even need any concept of ceramics—to recognize that a vessel fired in a wood kiln has undergone a transformative, metamorphic process.
Unlike the flawless glaze surface of porcelain, wood-fired pottery has no ideal or permanently fixed form, nor does it imply an object that is refined and “perfect.” Flow, rather than solidity, is fundamental to the aesthetics of wood-firing. Its surface has directionality: the convergence of ash and flame endows it with motion; it has a singular “face,” its colors bearing the veil and kiss of fire. In this respect, even the most ashen, most overcast, most muted wood-fired piece possesses a clarity of testimony: its aesthetics stand as evidence of change.
Here a question emerges: the philosophy of the “firing story” in ceramics—where we can slide almost imperceptibly between process and outcome as we speak. Should I care—as most ceramic artists do, and in fact many collectors as well—about the conditions under which a vessel came into being? Does that story, whether recognizable or not, make it an object of greater or deeper aesthetic value?
This is a microcosm of a larger issue, one that lies at the heart of all discourse on art: form and content, material and narrative, object and intention. Do the conditions of an object’s making, and the maker’s intention in creating it, carry a particular significance?
I believe that wood-fired pottery, each time we look at it, offers something “new.” Live with anything for long enough, and you will find that it reveals itself in new ways—not only because you discover aspects you previously failed to notice, but also because you yourself are changing: you begin to see, to cherish, and to seek things different from before.
In more than a decade of wood-fired ceramic practice, I have pursued the idea of change within wood-fired ceramic art, yet I do not know whether it is truly worth it. Life is finite, while the variations produced by firing are endless—can I ever exhaust them? Or is it enough simply to do the best I can? Or should I instead seek what is unchanging within wood-firing? Perhaps one day, I too will change！
