Tong Ming's pot was very popular with tea lovers more than ten years ago, and many insiders were happy to have Tong Ming's creative pot on the tea table.
On November 29, 2023, I came to Dehua for the second time to see Mr. Tong Ming and his team, and this day happened to be Tong Ming's birthday.
Tong Ming is sincere, simple, subtle, and not good at words. The tension of thinking is bursting when making a pot, and it often gives people a dazzling surprise. On the booth of his works, the pots of various beautiful techniques are dizzying and lovely. When asked about Mr. Tong Ming's inspiration for the creation of pots, he said:
Ware is the father of tea
Vessel is the father of tea, water is the mother of tea, and it is Tong Ming's philosophy on the relationship between pot and tea.
Tong Ming said that Dehua is made of white porcelain, and my pot is neither white porcelain nor purple sand, the shape is similar to see, and the creative improvement in ergonomics has been made, and breakthroughs have been made in practical beauty, visual beauty, and humanistic beauty, so it is difficult to be imitated. Tea and pot to talk about fate, like people, not all people can be fate, can be friends, tea and pot are the same, such as green tea with what utensils, black tea with what utensils, what kind of friends to make what tea, the taste is that feeling.
For example, the pot of "listening attentively", the silence is like "everything passes by and is unmoved", there is Wang Yangming's philosophy of "unity of knowledge and action", and Sima Yi's confusion when he listens to the qin.
The beauty of life is ultimately pleasure. When a friend arrives, brews a pot of tea, listens to the tea soup falling into the cup, and the tea has not yet been drunk, he has already felt happy, and the communication between the pot and the tea has increased the connotation of pleasure. Those who understand naturally understand, why should those who don't understand need to understand? "Tong Ming's hand-made" work "Twilight Guanshan" won the gold medal of the 2011 Arts and Crafts Master Works and Arts and Crafts Boutique Expo.
Craftsmen must have aesthetics
The pot has a soul, the aesthetic expression of the craftsman is very important, the tea and the pot are symbiotic and interconnected, and the rendering of the soul is different. Creativity is like a friend, more unexpected, just like your arrival bumped into my birthday, the unexpected comes from the surprise.
Rizhao Jinshan" this pot, the idea came from 2019 to **, when we were a group of 8 people, from Lhasa to Nyingchi self-driving, the car from top to bottom, the sunset, the golden light in the Nanga Bhava Snow Mountain, at that moment the radiance, the golden stained snow mountain is more holy, the golden glow, the snow mountain is like the moon of the gods. Therefore, this pot has the shock transmitted to me by the Rizhao Golden Mountain, and the magnificent presentation of the Himalayas and holy glaciers, which is my awe of heaven and earth and all things natural, and of course, I also hope that the luck of the Rizhao Golden Mountain can dispel everyone's thorns and darkness. "Zen Nothing to Seek" won the 3rd Fujian Provincial Ceramic Art and Design Innovation Gold Award. "Pot Language" won the bonus of the 2012 Art Master Works and Arts and Crafts Boutique Expo. "Sunrise over the East China Sea" won the gold medal of Fujian Provincial Tourism Souvenir Creative Design Competition.
Tong Ming said that the creativity and exploration of the pot has been on the road, and he has lost count of how many failures he has to succeed once. That is, on the day we arrived in Dehua, the 10 pots made for a long time, when firing, all the glaze water applications did not meet the expected requirements, and all of them collapsed on the silicon carbide plate during firing. The team said that they originally wanted to take a small ** and keep it as a memorial of their hard work, but they were all smashed by Teacher Tong Ming before we arrived and poured into the pile of debris ......
Alas - be cruel to yourself, only then can you have the motivation to recreate.
Tong Ming said that he is particularly harsh on the materials, there is a purple sand soul and different from the purple sand, there is a rhyme of Xi Shi in the shape and non Xi Shi, it is very easy and comfortable to pick up, most of the people in Dehua do white porcelain, and my breakthrough lies in finding another way, from the selection of materials, billet making, positioning, water, glaze, firing methods, etc., rough to delicate, on the surface it is to do subtraction, but actually in addition.
Tong Ming's hand-made positioning
Tong Ming said that conventional products should be properly optimized and changed with market changes, and Tong Ming's hand-made bottom labeling products can be relatively mass-produced and easy to develop; Creative products are not easy to play, each piece of hand-signed with a personal name must be made by yourself, and pure artistic works cannot be produced like products, purely the joy of the teapot in the heart.
Dehua ceramics began in the Neolithic Age, flourished in the Tang and Song dynasties, flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and developed in contemporary times. Tong Ming said that in my early years, I was a kiln worker, and I learned kiln manufacturing with Master Lu Ming, and there are many factories in Dehua that have left traces of my labor. At that time, the Dehua ceramic industry was not as blooming everywhere as it is now, and I had to cross counties and even provinces to help other ceramic producing areas build kilns, and I would get motion sickness, so I gave up this profession. At the same time, "The Golden Years" won the gold medal of the Boyi Cup - Welcome to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China Arts and Crafts Exhibition Selection Competition; "Just be happy" won the gold medal of the 2013 China Arts and Crafts Fair; "The Taste of the Prosperous Age" won the gold medal of the 2015 Chinese Traditional Arts and Crafts Exhibition "Skillful Heavenly Craftsmanship Golden Horse Award".
My father is the first batch of ceramic workshops in the reform and opening up, I also followed my father to make ceramics, at that time I had the deepest influence on the old ceramic artist is Chen Deqing teacher, he is good when he creates, the ceramic artworks he created are fired by me, and I belong to the little assistant who helped him make wine. In those years of ceramic enlightenment, I learned more from my father about diligence and perseverance. I gradually fell in love with this profession, and it is precisely because of this study and exploration that I have been able to skillfully apply the kiln design and ceramic firing methods in the past 30 years, and have achieved my breakthrough in the field of kiln transformation.
In the past, when I was doing international business, although it was also independent research and development, the leading direction was still Western culture, and of course, because of my age, I couldn't stand the fatigue of catching up with the goods and often had to stay up all night. I have a friend of the foreign trade company sent a piece of gold sandalwood ink jade tea tray, Dehua is famous for white porcelain, almost every household is with white porcelain tea sets, like people of my age, at that time everyone drank Tieguanyin, a stainless steel tea tray, put a set of white porcelain tea sets, or tea brand gifts with brand appliqué tea sets, this gold sandalwood ink jade tea tray was very special at the time, simple and heavy, so I thought, made a sandalwood black texture of the teapot to match, the picture is rounded, As a result, there are more and more abundant practical tea utensils. This is also the origin of Tong Ming's hand-made.
Some people like Tong Ming's handmade, I am very happy, at first my work is not for sale, there is a customer who likes a pot and wants to buy it, I say not to sell. He came several times, and each time he came to increase the price, and finally bid 28,000 yuan, I said, I really don't sell it, I can give it to you.
One tea, one world, one pot and one life, there is no good or bad, only whether you like it or not, whether it is suitable or not, like a friend. Such as Zhong Ziqi and Yu Boya, when you meet someone who understands, you can read the pot, and you can also read the heart of the craftsman.
Everyone is familiar with: Dehua white, Chinese white; I am very grateful that someone likes us who have always insisted on making kiln changes, and I personally hope that I can make a pot and a vision, different people, have different lives. Such as the chant of the monk "Tong Ming hand-made tea set", the pottery industry, fish and dragons, several people, envy the king's heart, so that the joy is endless, the kiln fire shines on the night, the glaze is bright, the light is full of Qixia, the floating Ou spring snow is full of elegance, and the most elegant things are the clearest.