A Mercer University art professor honed her craft this summer in a Chinese city steeped in ceramic history dating back over 1,000 years.
Mary O’Malley, an assistant professor of art who specializes in sculpture and ceramics, spent six weeks as an artist-in-residence at Wang Ou Taoxichuan International Studio in the small city of Longquan, which is known for its swords and ceramics.
“Being embedded in Chinese ceramic history centers like Longquan is a ceramic geek’s dream because it’s so immersive. Ceramic archeology and modern production is everywhere, and it’s a really beautiful, impressive and fascinating history,” she said. “Being able to learn more about that was inspiring, and experimenting with those materials and processes feels like you’re tapping into being part of that ancient historic process.
“This aspect of Chinese culture and production is deeply authentic and extends beyond contemporary geopolitics. It’s very exciting to see where these ancient ceramic processes began. They are used all over the globe, including how even your everyday coffee mug is made.”
Celadon, a green-hued ceramic glaze, originated in China. Longquan historically was a major producer of celadon wares, which were fired in dragon kilns built into a hillside.
“The beauty of celadon, the reason why it’s so beloved, is that it has this translucent but greenish water-like quality to it,” O’Malley said. “It’s a very thick glaze. It has a lot of dimension when you put it on a pot, so you kind of look through it.”
She liked how the water-like quality of celadon connected to the name of the city, which translates to “dragon spring.”
“There’s this really beautiful river that goes through the mountains. It’s an incredibly picturesque, beautiful place,” she said. “So, I was playing with that imagery, some of the mythology from the area.”
She also thought about Irish mythology, drawing on her own Irish heritage.
“In Ireland, water is seen as a metaphor for knowledge and knowledge exchange and as a portal into other dimensions, which are the Irish version of the other world. There’s a lot of interesting mythology around it,” she said. “I was playing with all those ideas and developed a technique that made the surface of a ceramic object really look like rippling water.”
In addition to producing new work during her residency, O’Malley taught a workshop and connected with fellow artists from around the world.
This was her third time traveling to China. She was part of the JingDeZhen Ceramic Institute International School’s inaugural residency in 2016 and served as a visiting artist at Shanghai JiaoTong University in 2019.
O’Malley came to Macon in 2021 as an artist-in-residence at Wesleyan College and started working at Mercer in 2022.
She has been invited to return to China in next summer to continue developing the work she began during this past visit.
“I love going to China because it’s so different from our experience and what we’re told of it,” she said. “When you go there, so much feels strange and foreign, but also so much of the human experience is the same, including an internationally shared familiarity and relationship with ceramic objects. I find that really important to see and share. It’s deeply engaging and fascinating.”
