Wood kilns are not only high in cost and difficult to fire, but also have higher technical requirements.
It doesn't matter if it's hard or not, as long as you make money, someone will do it.
However, for modern people who are eager for quick success, especially young people who need to support their families, can he persist in decades of accumulation of experience?
So in modern times, when there are some convenient and fast kiln entrances, they begin to compete with wood kilns.
After the 1980s, more modern firing technologies such as coal kilns, gas kilns, and electric kilns were introduced.
Compared with wood kilns, gas kilns have shorter firing times and higher product qualification rates.
During this period, even the operation of the state-owned ancient kiln and porcelain factories became increasingly difficult.
During this period, there were only more than 50 firing opportunities per year, and it was finally released in 1996.
After that, many Zhuang masters could only join a few private wood kilns.
But the income is only a drop in the bucket for the breadwinner who needs to support his family.
In order to make a living, they can only help some small workshops and use gas kilns to bake porcelain products.
Even two thousand years later, there are still some people who have never thought of giving up the art of wood kiln firing.
This is the most traditional porcelain firing technique for thousands of years, and he still wants to pass on this technique.
Over the past few decades, some people have persisted.
But now, the advantages of wood kilns are no longer comparable to those of gas kilns and coal kilns.
Shoude Yunkai saw the light of day. In 2010, with the support of the policy environment and market demand, the number of firewood kiln production projects gradually increased.
This also became a turning point for many masters in wood kiln work.
They helped design and build many new wood kilns and cultivated new successors of wood kiln skills.
However, compared with the complexity of making porcelain, there are still relatively few kiln masters who seem to be simple.
In particular, craftsmen with decades of experience in wood kiln firing are still relatively scarce.
Now kiln firing technology has been included in the intangible cultural heritage.
But for many masters in Jingzhen, intangible cultural heritage is not an exclusive secret.
If traditional crafts can be passed down, they will teach them.
As long as there are young people who want to learn, he will teach.
Carrying saggers to fill the kiln, staying up late to add firewood and watching the fire... these are all very hard work.
But now, there are still many masters in Jingzhen who lead their students to do the work themselves.
Only in this way can we accumulate real wood kiln firing technology.
Being able to endure hardship is the most basic requirement for learning this skill.
The continuous optimization of the market environment has also promoted the spread of wood-fired kiln porcelain across the country.
Many old masters who have retired from the ancient kiln and porcelain factories are still busy.
Because as long as there is a porcelain company that needs to build its own wood kiln, they will go to great lengths to help design or participate in the firing, and check the quality of the wood kiln.
It is having such a group of master craftsmen that saves Chen Wenzhe a lot of time, allowing him to produce more high-quality antique porcelain.
Of course, when it came to building a firewood kiln this time, I also focused on the master of making piles. The main reason was that this time Chen Wenzhe had an unexpected gain.
The master he hired this time is definitely an expert, because he can help you build a firewood kiln that is most suitable for you.
In other words, no matter what kind of porcelain you want to fire, he can make fine adjustments when building the wood kiln to make the type of porcelain you make more conducive to successful firing.
This is Chen Wenzhe's unexpected harvest from stealing the skills of his master, a kiln mouth suitable for porcelain.
If you don't know anything about porcelain and firewood kilns, how can you achieve this level?
Firing porcelain in a firewood kiln is, to put it simply and popularly, an artistic crystallization of the blending of earth, fire, firewood and kiln.
And this time, among the masters hired by Chen Wenzhe, there was actually such a real master.
He has 49 years of experience in wood kiln firing, so many teachers and artists need his help.
Chen Wenzhe also spent a lot of money to invite him.
This person is now able to control the entire process of the creation of ceramic artists' works according to their needs.
He only needs to ask about the materials for making porcelain and the desired firing effect, and he can design a firewood kiln of appropriate size.
The wood kiln designed in this way also allowed him to arrange each piece of porcelain in a suitable position in the kiln and accurately control the temperature of the fire.
Just this skill is enough to make Chen Wenzhe speechless.
At this time, he realized what kind of realm was beyond the true master level.
It should no longer be limited to kiln-firing technology, but should use a broader perspective to help porcelain craftsmen complete the production of a piece of porcelain.
This must be a master-level technique, right? He can specially design a wood kiln based on the porcelain you make, and fire it accurately.
This level must be the Grand Master level.
That is to say, after discovering the skills of this great kiln-firing master, Chen Wenzhe truly saw for the first time what it was like to be above a master.
He also saw the role that this great master could play in the entire porcelain making work, and also saw his accumulation and heritage!
To this extent, his technology is not limited to kiln firing technology, but integrated into the entire porcelain making process.
To put it this way, it seems a bit abstract. To put it simply, he has begun to truly draw parallels.
Any kind of technique, when it reaches the realm of a great master, even if he doesn't know how to do other techniques, he understands it and understands it deeply.
The judgment in the wood kiln firing process is difficult to explain clearly, but the "feeling" accumulated from many years of experience is accurate.
Because of tradition, the essence of craftsmanship cannot be quantified or copied like in the industrial age.
However, the life emotions and human ideals passed down from our ancestors are integrated into people's souls through word of mouth and day-to-day experience.
For example, this great master could tell at a glance the difference between works made using the modern kiln method and porcelain fired using wood kilns.
Just this ability can make him hopeless and disadvantageous in the antique market.
Good porcelain must be fired in a wood kiln. Even for modern art, the price of wood kiln firing is very expensive.
With such a vision and experience, wouldn’t it be easy to pick up the missing pieces in the antique market?
Unfortunately, this feeling and ability can only be accumulated in the most "original" and closest to life, day after day kiln firing process.
Let’s take this great master, he has fired wood kilns more than 3,000 times and stayed in the cave for nearly 50 years.
It was these fifty years of perseverance that allowed him to tell the quality of porcelain at a glance!
For example, when an electric or gas fired kiln is used, the bubbles produced are uniform and some are thin, instead of the large, medium, small and transparent phenomena produced by ancient wood burning.
Works fired in this way are obviously fakes.
This kind of ability has transcended the simple job of watching fire. Such people are the real masters and great masters!