六 (liù) Kaolin
When I moved to Vancouver in 2021, alongside the fear, anxiety, loneliness and depression, the pandemic also created space, time, and quiet that allowed many of us to shift our priorities and explore things we had never managed to make time for.
A memory surfaced of my Dad buying me a toy when I was a kid. It was a cheap yellow plastic pottery wheel that plugged into the wall and spun around with a small lump of clay. As an adult, I never felt like I had the time or the money to take lessons, but clay was always in the back of my mind. During the pandemic, I finally signed up for classes, and the moment I touched clay, something inside me shifted.
The more I worked with clay, the more I realized it was healing the grief I experienced at the loss of my heritage culture. The intense feelings I had about leaving behind my friends and apartment in Saigon, and the suffocating lockdowns we endured finally had an outlet.
I knew I wanted to work with porcelain, which recalls a particular historical time and place in China. It is made up of the mineral kaolin, which historically was found only in the finest porcelain clays originating from the foothills of Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province of southeastern China. This special compound is what sets porcelain apart from terracotta, earthenware, and stoneware clays that are commonly found elsewhere in the world. The priceless blue and white Ming dynasty vases were made possible only with kaolin, which gives the clay the plasticity required to become incredibly thin, delicate, and translucent when fired at high temperatures.
It took me a year before I was skilled enough to begin throwing with porcelain, and from then on every time I touched clay it felt as if my body was being returned to its place of origin. Symbolically connecting with my homeland through the elements of earth (clay), wind (air), fire (kiln), and water grounded me. Nurturing this connection to my heritage culture became a source of protection and strength that got me through the pandemic, but it also allowed me to go back and explore parts of my identity I thought I no longer had access to when my grandmothers passed away.
A memory surfaced of my Dad buying me a toy when I was a kid. It was a cheap yellow plastic pottery wheel that plugged into the wall and spun around with a small lump of clay. As an adult, I never felt like I had the time or the money to take lessons, but clay was always in the back of my mind. During the pandemic, I finally signed up for classes, and the moment I touched clay, something inside me shifted.
The more I worked with clay, the more I realized it was healing the grief I experienced at the loss of my heritage culture. The intense feelings I had about leaving behind my friends and apartment in Saigon, and the suffocating lockdowns we endured finally had an outlet.
I knew I wanted to work with porcelain, which recalls a particular historical time and place in China. It is made up of the mineral kaolin, which historically was found only in the finest porcelain clays originating from the foothills of Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province of southeastern China. This special compound is what sets porcelain apart from terracotta, earthenware, and stoneware clays that are commonly found elsewhere in the world. The priceless blue and white Ming dynasty vases were made possible only with kaolin, which gives the clay the plasticity required to become incredibly thin, delicate, and translucent when fired at high temperatures.
It took me a year before I was skilled enough to begin throwing with porcelain, and from then on every time I touched clay it felt as if my body was being returned to its place of origin. Symbolically connecting with my homeland through the elements of earth (clay), wind (air), fire (kiln), and water grounded me. Nurturing this connection to my heritage culture became a source of protection and strength that got me through the pandemic, but it also allowed me to go back and explore parts of my identity I thought I no longer had access to when my grandmothers passed away.