After an incredibly busy and successful year in 2004 honoring the Millennium event of Jingdezhen 1000 Years Celebration of Porcelain, we at Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute continued to celebrate the Jingdezhen 1000 Years program into 2005. With the support of Jingdezhen Municipal People's Government, we hosted a variety of international groups and organized events in 2005.

Sanbao Ceramic Working Village had a full artist residency program from May until November. Sanbao also hosted a number of visiting artists. Adriaan Rees of Amsterdam visited to discuss art projects and Pieter Kemink of Rijks Academy of Holland came to discuss future artist exchanges with Sanbao. Professor Jim Leedy of Kansas City Art Institute was the Visiting Artist for 2005 and he worked, along with his wife, Molly Foreman, for 2 months on a continuation of the Millennium Wall project.

It was another busy year to host events in Jingdezhen and to promote the artist programs worldwide. Jackson Li made a trip to Europe in August, with the Vice Mayor and the Assistant Party Secretary of Jingdezhen. The group was received by the Paraxo Culture Center of Allassio, Italy and then the Kescemet Ceramics Center in Hungary. They also attended the sale of porcelain antiques from the famous Gottenburg ship that sunk near Stockholm Sweden with a load of Jingdezhen porcelain.

In a cooperative venture with Nidec-Shimpo of Japan , the Jingdezhen office of Shimpo was opened at Sanbao. Shimpo has supplied Sanbao with a fully equipped studio of 12 wheels, gas kilns, slab rollers, pug mills and other equipment. Sanbao now acts as an official promoter of Shimpo in China.

Building and renovations at Sanbao are continuing to keep pace with increased activity and a wider offering of services. The mission of Sanbao is to create an atmosphere of learning and appreciation of classical porcelain of Jingdezhen. The buildings and facilities reflect this in their traditional construction methods and attention to detail. Traditional materials and artifacts are included as much as possible into the design. Sanbao thus acts as a preservation site for the wealth of ceramic history in the Jingdezhen area. Song and Ming shards are found embedded everywhere at Sanbao. 

An original farmhouse was purchased to honor the support and contributions of Professor Wayne Higby of Alfred University and this has now been renovated into an intimate evening bar. The dining facilities for the resident artists have been moved into the new Sanbao Restaurant so the artists can enjoy a wider variety of traditional Chinese dishes and eat with local patrons. 

The Millennium Wall project has entered its second phase in 2005. As well as being a major contributor in 2004, Jim Leedy is creating a new wall section with the theme of “A Moment of Jingdezhen“. Leedy has cast the face and hands of many of the Jingdezhen politicians and masters and is producing 180 tiles of 18x18 inches. The works will be fired in an anagama kiln at Sanbao. We are creating a new phase of the Millennium Wall to be installed in 2006 in the mountain town of Yaoli, the cradle of Jingdezhen civilization. Anyone who is interested to send art work to be incorporated into the Millennium Wall, please contact us.

The major event of the year has been the 2005 Jingdezhen International Ceramics Expo of October 12-18. Displays and presentations came from all over China and a variety of European factory studios. The resident artists of Sanbao were invited to the opening ceremonies, banquets and major media events of the Expo. Under the support and direction of the Jingdezhen Municipal People's Government , Sanbao organized a Masters-in-Clay workshop, with contributions from the international artists of Sanbao and the porcelain masters of Jingdezhen. The workshop was hosted by Xindu Ceramic Center as it’s official opening event. Sanbao sponsored the “Taste of Masters” exhibition, with selected international participation. This exhibition was part of the official opening of the new China National Museum of Ceramics in Jingdezhen. All works from the exhibition were graciously donated by the artists to the Millennium Wall project.

The government of Jingdezhen is in the final stages of creating a publication, “The World Ceramic Collection Book”, and it will be available for purchase in 2006.  Another Jingdezhen Ceramic Expo will be held in October of 2006 and we are designing programs for international artist participation in this event – exhibitions, workshops and cultural tours. 

In 2004, Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute purchased a traditional house in the ancient town of Yaoli, in the mountains near Jingdezhen. Yaoli dates back past the beginnings of Jingdezhen and is a national preservation historical site of over 300 houses of classical Ming and Qing architecture. The Yaoli studio building is presently under renovation. When finished it will include a teahouse and small scholar's studio. Yaoli/ Sanbao will be able to accommodate up to six artists to stay for a period of 2-14 days. The building is surrounded by tea bushes and bamboo forest and the shards strewn everywhere on the land are a reminder of ancient kiln sites of Song and Ming. Yaoli/ Sanbao will be open in the summer of 2006 and be part of the artist residency program. Details will be made available soon.

Sanbao, in cooperation with factory studios in Jingdezhen, has organized a series of special projects for international artists on an individual basis. Ole Lislerud, Professor of Art of National Academy of Art and Design, Oslo, Norway, is finishing his third project in Jingdezhen to decorate tiles of over 2 meters. Jennifer Tee of Holland will be returning soon to finish her project of creating porcelain sculptures and tiles. Because Sanbao has a close relationship with the factory/studios in Jingdezhen, we are able to offer artists production possibilities not possible in a studio setting and then can also take care of the shipping requirements.

Through our organization, China Ceramic Cultural Exchange, we have organized a large variety of educational and cultural tours of China. These tours have focused on both the major cultural sites of China and also craft and pottery villages off the beaten track and rarely accessible to the foreign traveler. Yunnan province is a new focus and an American group experienced this cultural diversity in 2005. An Ambassador of Jingdezhen program has been created to assist travelers interested in organizing a group for travel. Details are on the website. 

Sanbao now has an officially credited Summer School program. We have joined with the State University of New York – Cortland and now offer, since 2005, credit for college level students of USA to participate in the China summer school workshop/ tour programs (http://www.cortlandabroad.com/profiles/chinasumm.html). For non-students or those students not seeking credit, we still have a regular summer school program with application through Sanbao.

With the continual growth of the Sanbao facilities and programs it has become necessary to create a new website to concentrate on the artist residency, summer school and educational tour programs. This new website is www.chinasanbao.org. The fund raising and commercial programs will continue to be hosted on www.chinaclayart.com and be redesigned by the next NCECA conference in March 2006 in Portland, Oregon, USA. 

The mission of Sanbao is to support international artists and foster cultural exchange in an atmosphere of daily life, surrounded by traditional crafts and historical artifacts. Fund raising and commercial programs support this mission and allow Sanbao to continue offering scholarships of financial assistance so that artists around the world can share in this unique experience that is Sanbao.

For the next year 2006, Sanbao will offer artist residency from May to December, fellowships for a three-month period, a summer school workshop/ tour and an extensive travel program to various routes in China. Scholarships offered for the artist residency, summer school and fellowship programs. Details are available on the new web site, http://chinaclayart.com A new workshop project designated as “Design and Functional Pottery” will be unveiled in the near future and will offer 4 scholarships for a special residency in 2006.

Those of you who have traveled with us before in China know the attention to detail, the hidden treasures that lie down country roads, the incredible variety of Chinese cuisine and the depth of Chinese ceramic history to be seen in museums or in a discarded kiln site. With this sense of wonder and the appreciation in mind, we are offering an expanding list of tours into the heart of China. Travel is offered to Tibet, Yunnan Province, Xian and the Terracotta Warriors, Suzhou and the classical garden architecture, Yixing and its teapot culture and the canal towns near Hangzhou.  The new website has all the details. 

Sanbao will be represented at the International Academy of Ceramics Conference in the Baltics in 2006 and will unveil its China 2008 programs to coordinate with the IAC General Assembly in China in 2008.

We will be continuing our participation in the NCECA conferences in USA, with our 11th year attendance at the NCECA 2006 Conference in Portland Oregon. Sanbao studio will have a commercial booth to offer its Chinese craft items. Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute will have and a table in the educational area. So please drop by with your interest in China and we can discuss how to make your China dreams an unforgettable reality. 

Sincerely 

Jackson Li
President of Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute 

Steve Brousseau
Program Director of Jingdezhen Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute

 sanbaostudio@hotmail.com

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