A favorite childhood book of mine. I loved these projects, but only made a few of them.
I made a motor based on these instructions as a kid.
I was never much interested in fiction. This is the kind of book I read as a child. I’m quite sure I checked out this very book from the library at least once.
My absolute favourite though was David Macauley’s The Way Things Work.
may the benevolent spirit of Kang younghyun help me play bass tonight even though i barely know how to play, I don’t have the music, I was given no instructions, and there were no practices with the other instrumentalists
When you don’t have much, make the most of what you have . I turned the folding tables that we used for work into our coffee and dining tables on weekends. We hung our sample piñatas and lanterns from the ceiling like decorative chandeliers because they were too huge to store anywhere else. I made a tassel wall to decorate the space behind the TV and then wheeled the TV stand out of the way for product shots. And I covered the kitchen and surfaces with washi tape because it’s what I had on hand. It was colorful and temporary and I was tired of looking at the black and beige kitchen. Running a fully staffed design studio and party decor business out of my old, one room, apartment was stressful to say the least… but it was home. We didn’t have much to spend on decor, but we used what we had, and it was our favorite place we’d ever lived.
Congratulate you and your brain on a job well done!
They really do look all look the same don’t they?
I mean apart from not being matchy-matchy in colour. You probably couldn’t really tell when these bad boys and girls were fired.
Citations Away! :
British Museum Online Collection Qing Dynasty mid 19th Century-Early 20th. Pierson, Stacey, Illustrated catalogue of Ru, Guan, Jun, Guangdong and Yixing wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, University of London, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1999
British Museum Online collection Ming Dynasty 1368-1485Pierson, Stacey, Illustrated catalogue of Ru, Guan, Jun, Guangdong and Yixing wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, University of London, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1999
Victoria and Albert Online collection, Yuan Dynasty 1278-1368Kerr, Rose. Song Dynasty Ceramics. London: V&A Publications, 2004. p. 39, nos. 30 and 30a
Did I just give you a boregasm? Sorry I promise there’s a point to all of this.
You probably don’t need to know the other bits particularly. It just telling you what museum it’s in and what book it’s in. It’s just doing your basic due diligence. What I did do for you was bold the important information. So just doing some quick math for you you’ll notice a 622 year time lapse from No.3 to No. 1. WHOA. WAIT. WHAT ??!! Yes that’s right. That’s legit same pot was made over and over again not changing for 600 years.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
These are Jun ware flower pots. Well technically this is the bowl that you would put the flower pot in. Does that make sense? Maybe not. This is a Jun ware flower pot. This is the thing that you put in the stand.
Jun ware is what you will hear from those in the know called a ‘Great' ware of the Song Dynasty(960-1279). The text version of air-quotes is there because 'great’ just comes from the bazillion of history texts that call them great because Song Emperor’s used them at one point. This means they have a bunch of people telling you they’re great. So they’re great and that’s that really. The other ones that you’ll hear called great will be Ding, Ru, Jun, Guan and Ge.
Oh and okay- why we should be kind of resentful towards the Mongols here: Song dynasty (960-1278/9) great ware are kind of rare because of History’s O.G’s. Though to be fair the Song dynasty towards the end was a bit of fuster cluck-so 50/50. But because they kind of kicked butt at making things organised (probably quite literally), China got to the mass production of things! Yay! Not limited to but including paper and ceramics.
SO HANDSHAKE A MONGOL DAY! -Now with less Swording and Marauding.
To Recap and add a bunch of Chinese ceramics history in short: Great wares are ones that were used by the Song Imperial court at some point. So basically they were all #blessed for Song. So because they were official wares, they had seriously regimented #ootd: Same patterns, colours, and shapes. Basically:
Then all other Dynasties trying to fit in and prove they were legit really got into #tbt and basically be cause older=better=same same stuff being made over and over again.
Or Even shorter:
ZOMBIE CERAMICS!! THEY ONCE HAD A SOUL BUT NOW THEY ARE JUST AN EMPTY SHELL OF THEIR FORMER SELVES!!!
And truth be told, I pretty much hated on and everything to do with them.
I really did. I did not even give a ounce of bother. I was Diet Bother not even the full calorie bother. I really didn’t see what was so so special about stuff that was endlessly standardised and repeated with very little new influence. It was like congrats on making a cup that does what its supposed to.
Then I had a total epiphany.
This right here is called the 'Willow’ pattern and what you would also get called Chinoiserie.
First things first though, the Art Histo. crew likes to call these guys 'Blue and White wares’ because obviously because you’ve got your blue and your white. Though what will really impress is if you call them 'Underglaze Blue’ ceramics. This mean that the images of birds and people frolics are either hand-drawn on or transfer printed on then glazed in. And the other top three facts you need know:
Blue colour is caused by cobalt oxide.
The Chinese were a Mister-Steal-Yo-Motif yoinked it from the Middle East along with a few shapes and designs including the cobalt. They did this around the 14th century and quickly got busy. So much so that by the 16th century they even managed to source their own blues, gave a serious makeover to its earlier form called Qingbai, and, decided what designs it was going to put where. ENHANCE: This is called an Ewer. They are normally a metal thing but ceramics like to borrow from meta things.
3. They are made in Jingdezhen. You can even call Blue and White ware: Jingdezhen ware. Cause that’s all they do. Ever. The city’s official theme song should be Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. Check it:
Now that’s all caught up with, historical tour of duty two can begin: So along with tea, Europe was super big in love with Blue and White wares too. But they were mucho mucho dinero. So European ceramic factories decided they would take a crack at it which is how the whole Chinoiserie thing happened. Basically, a bunch of people who had never China’d trying to China.
What can you say really? And to make matters worse-and I promise I’m almost done throwing Chinoiserie under the bus- Do you remember really artsy types call Blue and White wares Underglaze Blue? Because it has all that baked in goodness of blue being under the glaze? Yeah. The European guys weren’t doing that. They were busy either hand drawing on or transferring the design on with a stencil which coined the term transfer ware. This means your design is pretty prone to wear and tear and chips off kinda easy. So not only are the aesthetics all off but the quality was worse. It gets better though. Sure, it’s so easy to rag on Chinoiserie for being a really bad Euro trip, but you gotta remember: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Europe took this pattern and ran with it made it in browns and reds, then even ripping off of ceramics and putting it on walls and bed sheets. ALL WILLOW EVERYTHANG!
Look at what’s going on here though :Europe took a totally Chinese idea and decked themselves out in it.
This is where and why I’d like to introduce you to :
JO NYE THE POLI SCI GUY!!!
Personally, I think he deserves his own catchy early nineties theme song:JO JO JO JO JO NYE THE POLI SCI GUY!
Joseph Nye coined the idea of soft power. Power in political science is all about the ability to influence the behaviours of others to get the outcomes you want. Nye thinks that great and all but wants to add something: The swag factor. What I mean by that is, Nye wants to include relative coolness into the definition of power. What that means is this: How many people around the world totally want to win an Oscar/care about the Oscars? A. Whole. Lot. Like, really a lot. I mean Cannes is cool and all but I’ll take that man gold statue.Please and Thank you. And what I want to do here is show you is that Blue and White ceramics are like ceramic’s Oscar. Yes.
Now if we take the the 'Willow’ pattern along with Blue and White wares make them follow along Jo Nye’s Poli Sci soft power footsteps China is the one of the first soft powers along with exercising its own brand of decorative nationalism. What I mean by all that is that even though Blue and White ceramics were technically a Middle Eastern idea, China was the first one to literally export it to the world and:
The first example of this before the whole Europe thing, China was kind of a big deal in Asia. They and set a trend in Korea (because China kinda conquered them but whatevs.) inspiring them to make their own form of Blue and White wares in the 14th century (Joseon Dynasty 1392-1897).
Then well this. We’ve already seen this here talked about this but this is Europe’s tribute to Blue and White game.
Then all of a sudden, Chinese ceramics became super duper affordable (read: Colonialism), which made Japan decide they too wanted to make fetch happen. Japan also decided the whole Western Colonialism thing wasn’t for them and decided that they too would become a Colonial power too but do their own thing. Tough, to do things, you need money. Japan needed to make money and long story short, Japan realised there was money to be made in imitating Chinese ceramics and came up with it’s own Chinoiserie thing called Imari.
And there you have it: Three different examples from three different places and spaces that show how infectious the ideas of Chinese ceramics truly are. What you see in Blue and White ceramics are a Chinese idea idea that took the world by storm. It is the ultimate trend set by the ultimate trendsetter. When China was a regional boss by the 13th and 14th centuries I spread its design ideas to it’s tributary spaces like Korea. Then by the time Blue ware were really taking off in the mid 19th to early 20th centuries, China wasn’t even at the top of it’s political game any more and soon it was a colony. Yet, China accommodated no one artistically. In fact, you see the opposite. Japan reorganised its ceramic industry to produce Chinese-style ceramics, kind of favouring that over its own designs. Then there was Europe, some of the most powerful nations in the international system bending over backwards to imitate and possess something from one of their colonies. Now that’ pretty amazing.
All in all, I hope you get why I changed my opinion on ceramics generally and why I think you can find ceramics or at least Chinese ceramics pretty cool. They can be quite the bad asses of history and kind of an endearing underdog story. And you know, failing that, you know they can totally pour and hold your drinks, store your stuff, or keep your flowers tidy. But I rather think of them like this:
If something feels off, then it IS. Figuring out what’s off is not necessary for a person to change her situation. The knowing in her gut is reason enough.
One of my most frequent thoughts used to be, I can work with that… I can work around it… I can accommodate it… I can tolerate it… I can get along. Now those thoughts are huge red flags for me.
Sometimes I forget they’re red flags, and I find myself in a particular situation turning them over and over in my mind. The turning is another red flag.
The heart can persuade the mind to work with it, work around it, accommodate, tolerate, get along. The mind can persuade itself. But the gut is steadfast. The gut always knows when something isn’t right.
About 4 years ago I started to recognize my desire to “make it work” in relationships as a red flag and a signal to let go. At the time I wrote to myself, “The heart can persuade the mind to work with it, work around it, accommodate, tolerate, get along. The mind can persuade itself. But the gut is steadfast. The gut always knows when something isn’t right.”
My gut knew that revelatory relationship was not healthy for me. That said, even after having that awareness I kept trying for months to “make” the relationship work because I didn’t know how to let go when “the whole world was born with my hands in hers.” Ultimately the only way to let go was to stop holding her hands, literally and figuratively.
The grief I experienced was as old as I was, older actually. The grief was clearly not just about the loss of that relationship, but about intensities in my early life attachments in my lineage — the very intensities that inspired me to feel my world born in the hands of an unavailable person and to try so hard to “make it work” and hold onto that *love*.
That old “make it work” pattern seems to have broken for me when I finally let go and grieved.
In one new relationship last year my heart said for a while, “Oh, we *love* her! Surely we can work with this unavailablity, right??” but my mind was a solid “no” with my gut, “That isn’t love, dear. Love is presence. Love is ease.”
I no longer try to “make it work” in relationships. I have significantly fewer relationships, but the ones I have are healthy and feel joyful and peaceful rather than intoxicating.
That particular relational container had huge purpose in my life. At times, I used to want to talk about all of this with her, and I wanted her to know how deeply important that relationship was to me. But she didn’t have the capacity to be present for that kind of conversation, and that was the crux of the matter.
