Yingge (鶯歌) is a small town on the outskirts of Taipei known for its ceramics. I met up with my friend Sharon and we arrived on a empty, old street on an almost sunny afternoon and was not too impressed by what we saw first.
We passed by a few pottery shops with very cute figurines.
We followed the signs to the Yingge Ceramics Museum, a modern four story building that actually seems a bit out of place in the old town. The entrance is free and you get to see some beautiful works of art, the history of ceramics in Yingge, and if you like, you can also take a lesson with a teacher and make your own.
After looking at some beautiful and some interesting (what’s up with the rabbit and the girl? @_@) works by others, we were ready to try our own skills! It started raining again as we left the museum, and by the time we trekked to the Old Street, a quaint little area of town with a stone paved walkway and ceramics stores and studios lining both sides. I would have taken a picture, if I weren’t getting soaked -__-
All complaints aside, we finally made it to the ceramics studio!
Our teacher was great and showed us how easy it was to mold this little block of wet mud into all these wonderful shapes. Every one of these shapes took him 5 seconds. Maybe 2.
Then it was our turn!
I’ll skip all the gory details (especially since my hands were too dirty to take any pictures), but basically after half an hour and 3 messed up blocks of clay, I made this!
OK, the teacher helped. A lot. For some reason my clay keeps wanting to turn into abstract art when my intention was for it to become a classy tea cup. But anyway, it’s now ready to be decorated!
Tada! The final product!
Oh hey, Stormy says hi.
It’ll take 2 weeks for the final product to arrive and we can’t wait! 🙂
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