}ULASERJET€-}.mt 14 .hm 3 .pn 1 .h1Grayson Enterprises Ltd. First NA Serial Rights .h2Copyright 1989 1,517 words main story .h3Page #. 233 words sidebar .fo .LS2 .OJ OFF      THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF CHINA PAINTING   Written by June Grayson  Photographed by Gary Hestilow, Richard Grayson, and June Grayson        Have you inherited a china plate awash with lush roses hand-  painted by a beloved great-grandmother? Lucky you. You are part   of the wonderful world of porcelain painting which began in China   2,000 years ago.   π,3  Š In spite of periodic political upheavals, Chinese pottery   workers have experimented with clays, kilns, glazes, and decorat  ing since 200 B. C. Utilizing local deposits of a rare white   clay, they developed the fine porcelain products of the T'ang   dynasty of 618-906 AD.  In the early 18th century, one million people in Ching-te-  Chen, China, shaped and fired porcelain in its three thousand   kilns. The clipper ships of the English East India Company   transported Oriental porcelains and teas to an eager European   market.  .LS2 Chien-te-Chin still has 220 porcelain factories that employ   100,000 people, one-fourth of its total population. Its splendid   products are exported throughout the world.  Europeans once thought porcelain more precious than gold.   They began importing it from China in the 16th century. In 1503   Queen Isabella of Spain owned a white porcelain bowl framed and   mounted in 22 carat gold.  For centuries, Europeans tried to discover the secrets of   Chinese porcelain manufacture. An alchemist, Johann Friedrich   Boettger, imprisoned by Augustus the Strong, king of Poland,   to make gold, mixed local clays to create a porcelain similar to   the Chinese product in 1709.   π,@)  Š Augustus established the still famous Meissen Porcelain   Factory. He kept Boettger and his assistants under guard so   other rulers would not kidnap them and learn their manufacturing   techniques. Meissen china became the rage of Europe.  Eventually the secrets slipped out, porcelain manufacture   spread throughout Europe, and the porcelain "craze" was on. Mme.   de Pompadour, mistress of the French King and benefactress of the   French porcelain factory at Sevres, insisted that "to have money   and not buy porcelain is to be a bad citizen of France."  A seventeenth-century English poet, Robert Wilde, asserted   that porcelain was:  .lm17 "... a piece of Christ, a star in dust,    @ @   A vein in gold, a china dish that must  @ @   Be used in Heaven, when God shall feed the just."  .lm Porcelain painting promoted women's liberation. In 1815,   Henry Doulton, an English pottery owner, allowed women to work as   creative china painters. His employee, Hannah Barlow, became an   internationally famous porcelain artist. His grateful female   workers wrote, "We, the Lady Artists, desire to express our   obligations to you for elevating so large a number of our sex and   making arrangements for our comfort."  John Bloomfield, landowner in northern Ireland, discovered   π,@) Šwhite clay on his property in the 1850s. He developed the famed   Belleek china, eminently collectible from the first and still in   production.  The Tucker China Factory in Philadelphia produced the first   American porcelain in 1826. As European china factory workers   immigrated to America in the 19th century, they established   hundreds of small china factories. Lenox, Inc. and Pickard China   survive today.  The Mayflower held no trunks packed with fine porcelain when   it landed in Massachusetts in 1620. Communal serving bowls were   made of pewter and earthenware. Individual dishes were rare.   Settlers carved small wooden plates out of crosscut pieces of   logs. Wealthy families used silverplate. The mass production techniques of the Industrial Revolution   enabled china factories to turn out millions of dishes affordable   by almost every family. Factory owners needed thousands of   porcelain artists. Because of the social restrictions of the   Victorian age, china painting was one of the few jobs appropriate   for proper young women.  Even if they did not need to work, Victorian women painted   china to express their artistic talents and beautify their homes.   Factory and home decorated china did not differ in quality: tal  π,@) Šented artists worked either place. Unlike machine-made china, no   two pieces of hand-painted china are exactly alike - and that is   part of its appeal.  No Victorian home could be without a berry set, a large   serving dish with matching smaller dishes. Chocolate sets with   a tall slender pitcher and matching cups were also popular.   Anything made out of china could be hand-painted: parlor lamps,   dining room chandeliers, wall tiles, umbrella stands, and porce  lain dolls.  Two 20th century world wars, with the bombing of European   cities and destruction of many porcelain factories, and the Great   Depression of the 1930s almost destroyed the porcelain industry.   Now, however, porcelain manufacture and the art of porcelain   painting has rebounded throughout the world. Two international   organizations based in the United States have contributed to this   rebirth - The World Organization of China Painters (WOCP), with   its headquarters in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and International   Porcelain Artists, Inc., in Dallas, Texas.  "If you love your home and want to create beautiful things,   become a china painter," advises Billie Jean Guttendorf, a china   painting teacher for twenty years in Aurora, Illinois. "You   don't need to be a wonderful artist, but you have to have a   π,@) Šfervent desire, along with plenty of patience and determination."  You also need time and money. An initial set of painter's   palette, paints, and brushes can cost $100.00. Weekly group   classes or private lessons cost from $5.00 to $20.00. The glazed   china blanks on which to paint are additional: a small round   plate may cost $8.00, a five piece table setting $30.00, and a   jewelry pendant $3.00.  Your teacher will supply the kiln, for your china object   will require at least three firings up to 1,400 degrees Fahren  heit. You will apply the paints in very thin layers each time so   they will fuse smoothly into the glaze from the heat of the kiln.   After you become proficient, you will want your own kiln ($400.00   and up).  You can trace a design for your first plate from thousands   of pattern books published by china teachers. "Your goal is to   develop original designs with pleasing colors and a balanced   composition, but most beginners are too nervous to do this at   first," explains Billie Jean.  Some art critics refuse to recognize porcelain painting as a   fine art. Pauline Salyer, porcelain artist and founder of   the WOCP, does not mince words: "Anyone who says that is just   plain dumb. Porcelain painting is the oldest continuous fine art   π,@) Šform - and the most difficult one - in the world."  Pauline is that rare person: an artist with organizational   skills and a life-long passion for china painting. Even as   a mother of four small children, she always took private lessons   in china painting. "There were other china painters then, but we   weren't organized. I thought that if we banded together, we   could afford to buy group kilns and hire teachers to   share advanced techniques."  She started the WOCP in 1962 with headquarters in her Okla  homa City home. Twelve china painters unite to form a local   club. Regional, state, national, and international meetings keep   its current nine thousand members abreast of new developments,   instill enthusiasm, schedule teaching seminars, and provide   booths where members can sell their creations to other members   and outside visitors.  Don't become a china painter to make a quick buck. Most   china painters agree with one member who says, "I will never sell   anything I make. Nothing could ever repay me for the time and   devotion I put into every piece."  One talented china painter, however, makes a fine living   reproducing broken parts of Victorian art lamps. Some artists   teach and publish books for other china painters. Galleries and   π,@) Šboutiques accept hand-painted china for consignment sales.   Popular one-of-a-kind jewelry items, featuring hand-painted   pendants, sell from $50.00 to $150.00. Members of local clubs   hold yearly exhibitions for the public and sometimes display at   area arts and craft shows.  China painting can be a shared passion. An Oklahoma   grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter designed and painted the   decorated tiles in the kitchen and five bathrooms of their new   home. Pauline has painted a 12 place dinnerware set for each of   her children. She designed and painted a decorative plate for   each of her seven granddaughters for this year's Christmas   present.  Such artists have spent years developing their talents.   "When you have painted 10,000 roses, you will paint a rose as   well as I do," says Sonie Ames, a Paradise, California teacher.  Yet no investment is too much for a true devotee of china   painting. "People will always find the time and money to do what   they truly love," Pauline thinks.   „„  WOCP now owns a spacious building in Oklahoma City which   includes the Foundation Center Museum, the only museum in the   United States devoted entirely to fine porcelain. Members donate   the prize-winning porcelains from all state and international   π,@) Šexhibitions for the museum's permanent collection. Advanced   collectors of fine porcelain can donate their treasures to the   museum to be guarded, displayed, studied, and enjoyed forever.  Whether you enter the wonderful world of china painting as   an admirer or an artist, you can say with Thomas Moore, the   nineteenth century English poet:  "You may break, you may shatter, the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."  #####  For more information on china painting, write or call:  The World Organization of China Painters 3111 Northwest 19th Street Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 73107 telephone: (405)521-1234  International Porcelain Artists, Inc. 7424 Greenville Avenue Suite 101 Dallas, Texas 75231 telephone: (214)692-5037