Potter’s art under threat as buyers are seduced by cheap alternatives
Print Edition
Anwar Ali began to learn Uygur pottery from his father when he was just 7 years old. Now, at 48, he and his brother could be the final inheritors of the family business.
Like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he sells pottery items made and fired in a courtyard in the old city district of Kashgar, mostly to his fellow Uygurs.
But a change has come over Anwar’s traditional trade recently. As more people stopped buying his pottery, seduced by cheap alternatives in modern supermarkets, a business that was once a domestic craft producing essential household items has become an art form.
For Anwar, working his potter’s wheel and shaping clay for hours on end is far from a tribulation, and more a kind of serene pleasure. He generally works for five to 10 hours and makes about 20 pieces a day for the kiln.
Modern life has made pottery making easier, more pleasant and more efficient: Anwar likes to tune in to the local Uygur radio station when working and he can take a shower to clean off the mud after work. Unfortunately, while the benefits of modern society make his life a little easier, they do little to prevent the craft from dying out.
Anwar’s Uygur pottery workshop does not fit the contemporary business model. He takes clay from the shallows of the Tuman River in front of his terraced house. Rocks used to make the colorful glazes are from the desert outside Kashgar and he uses firewood bought from the bazaar.
His work is not made to order, nor does he have any idea how to move his business online.
In his parents’ time, there were dozens of potters in the community. Currently, there are only about a dozen and among them, only four are still in business, including Anwar and his brother. His son refused to take over his mantle, preferring to earn less money driving a taxi. Making pottery was “too tiring and too dirty.”
Becoming a qualified potter requires an apprenticeship of three to four years, time few are prepared to “waste.”
Anwar has tried to recruit apprentices and teach them for free. In 2014, three college girls from Beijing stayed in Kashgar for three months and learned from him, but “they left before they could perfect their skills.”
In 2009, Kashgar began to renovate the old city to attract more visitors. Anwar now earns some 5,000 yuan (US$800) a month from tourists.
“I haven’t thought about what to do when I am too old for this, but as long as I can move, I will keep the workshop running,” he said.
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