Singaporean ceramic artist Ng Yang Ce works at her studio in western Singapore, Aug. 18, 2026. (Xinhua/Shu Chang)
SINGAPORE, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- In Jingdezhen, China's renowned "porcelain capital," Singaporean ceramic artist Vanessa Sng discovered that a ceramics studio could stay open through the night.
In the summer of 2025, Sng enrolled in a seven-day ceramics course in Jingdezhen in China's eastern Jiangxi province. She made 20 ceramic pieces during the week, from a cup smaller than the palm of her hand to a vase nearly as tall as a basketball. It was exactly the kind of immersion she had been looking for.
"In Singapore, there are hardly any studios where you can take a course for seven days consecutively, and I can't stay in the studio for so long. I really just wanted to have a very intense week of doing that, and not think about anything else," Sng said.
Jingdezhen, whose handicraft porcelain industry sites were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July this year, is a city where ceramics are part of daily life. People make and sell ceramics, teach ceramics, and browse ceramics markets. Even some streetlamps are made of ceramic.
Ken Lu, a Singaporean who has lived in Jingdezhen for eight years and runs a three-story studio, graduated from Jingdezhen Ceramic University and settled in the city in 2018.
"The Singaporean community has only accessed Jingdezhen in the last three years," Lu told Xinhua. Some stay, some come for short-term residencies, and others come for markets that bring together artists from around the world.
"Jingdezhen's value leans towards artistic endeavors," Lu said, adding that for young people who don't want a desk job and want to pursue creative work, Jingdezhen is the place.
What Sng found in making ceramics in Jingdezhen was a sense of freedom: it was all right to make mistakes. She once turned lumps of clay into thin slabs and used them to make two cups, joining the ends to form the walls. She made the walls very thin, and later, when the cups dried, the joints cracked.
Instead of simply pointing out her mistake, the teacher asked, "Why do you think this happened?"
The question encouraged Sng to examine the failure for herself. She reasoned that the two ends had different amounts of moisture: one had dried faster than the other, causing them to shrink at different rates.
The teacher called the other students over. "Good. I'll teach everyone how to repair it."
Jingdezhen's well-established ceramics industry gives this creative freedom a practical foundation. Lu described a city where almost every stage of the production process has its own specialist -- craftspeople who have devoted their careers to a particular technique and can help bring an artist's ideas to life.
He called Jingdezhen a "one-stop shop," with a full range of tools, spare parts, expertise, and workshops capable of producing everything from functional wares to pots four meters high.
"There is always a public kiln that is firing. Tests can be done repeatedly, and there are so many choices of clays and glazes," he said. "Jingdezhen is a candy shop for ceramic artists."
For experienced ceramists, the candy shop is also a place to try something new. Ng Yang Ce, a Singaporean who has worked with clay for 16 years, is one of them.
In the autumn of 2025, Ng made her first trip to Jingdezhen to attend a wood-firing workshop. She has long been interested in wood kilns in different parts of the world: the shape of the kiln, the type of wood used, and the way the wood is fed into the fire can all affect the work that emerges at the end.
The kiln stood in the hills. Ng and the other participants worked in a courtyard, each making their own pieces. When the firing began, they took turns feeding the kiln with wood.
While waiting for the kiln to cool, they visited local ceramic workshops and learned from local artisans about traditional throwing techniques, joining and trimming porcelain pieces, as well as underglaze and overglaze decoration.
Her favorite piece from that day's wood firing was a vase with a mountain-like form. The fire gave the piece the orange of a sunset, while a fine pattern of black spots appeared around the rim.
"I think this is really the first time I've seen the tadpole-like pattern accumulating on a ceramic piece," she said.
This year, Ng has returned to Jingdezhen twice. She plans to return in October for another wood-firing camp. For her, Jingdezhen has been a source of encouragement.
"I see so many new ideas, new techniques, and so many people who are working hard to make ceramics," she said. "Everyone is doing something different there, using the resources in Jingdezhen to develop their ideas. You can see both the hard work and the joy in it."
"I am glad that we can all unite together and benefit individually or spiritually through the medium of clay, on this earth," said Ng. ■
Ken Lu, a Singaporean ceramic artist who graduated from Jingdezhen Ceramic University, works in a studio in Singapore, Nov. 12, 2024. (Xinhua)
Singaporean ceramic artist Vanessa Sng repairs a cracked ceramic piece at a studio in Jingdezhen, east China's Jiangxi Province, July 4, 2025. (Xinhua)