Taoism and the Virtue of energy, and pots.

Seeking the balance – and its disruption – that Tao Energy creates.

I first came across Taoism through my martial arts practice.   The balance of energy, the flow and use of Ki (Chi in Chinese) and concepts of Wu Wei (empty mind) became central to my later, more mature karate training  and teaching.   In my classes every session began and ended with Mushin – a form of mindful meditation.      The object was to still the mind, and focus on the Tanden (Dantian in Chinese) which is believed to the centre of energy within the body.   It is the point that focuses energy and allows it to flow and be used in physical practice – the point from which Ki (Chi) originates and from which it flows.    Tanden (Dantian) is located in a vertical line a couple of inches below the navel.      In Japanese martial arts the whole area of the abdomen (Hara) is also important as a stabilising and strengthening area, closely drawing upon the intense energy source of Tanden.

In modern western fitness training Hara closely corresponds to what is constantly referred to as ‘the core’.

Taoism is completely focused on the flow of this energy in the wider world.   It is a philosophy of balance – in which the real nature of things is constantly seeking balance.   This energy and its balance are referred to as  Te – Virtue in English.    Not to be confused with notions of good/bad, angelic/evil, ethical/immoral.     The Tao and Te are amoral – they just are.    Probably the most famous quote from The Tao Te Ching is “The Tao that can be known is not the real Tao”.      

So we cannot ‘know’ the Tao, we cannot become One with it, but it can be felt and some small part of its manifestations can be used, most commonly in Chinese medicine or in martial arts.

Though we cannot know the Tao nor its energy, we can strive to balance out those parts of its manifestations that we can be aware of.     We can be aware that every aspect of Yin has a manifestation of Yang within it, and vis versa – the classic Yin/Yang symbol.

In Chinese culture there is a reverence for natural rock formations and designs of ‘sacred mountains’ that are seen as manifestations of the power and energy of the Tao on the 10 thousand things (anything corporeal and tangible).     An extension of this is the placing of stones – of all sizes – that have been ‘worked on’ by nature in such a way that the manifest forces of the Tao through the action of water and wind are obvious.    When I visited China in 2011 there were numerous examples of stones and rocks placed in meaningful places such as by lakes, temples, valleys where the energy of the Tao may become stagnant etc.     

Natural rocks in Beihai Park in Beijing old city.   These rocks can be found throughout the old city, most often associated with temples, lakes or royal palaces.    They symbolise the flow and power of the Tao, and its manifestations in wind and water and how they work on the stones.

A natural, uncut rock outside Zheng Jue Hall of the Buddas in Beihai Park, Beijing old city.

A stele outside Zheng Jue Hall.   The writing is resting on a manmade representation of a mountain with wind and water, representing the flow of the Tao.

A stone weathered by water.   This could be considered auspicious within the Taoist tradition.   The process of weathering has not just worked upon the structure of the stone, but in doing so has imparted some of the energy and balance of the Tao into the tangible object.

A bagua ‘spiritual’ text on Laoshan Sacred Mountain near Qingdo, China.   2011: personal photograph

In the Taoist tradition the flow of the Tao can be glimpsed in the natural formations of stones and in mountain formations.    The addition of the bagua can be seen as an attempt to balance the Energy of the Tao in our own perception of flow, chaos and creation, and to resolve the duality that is the nature of “the 10 Thousand Things” (tangible objects, places, ‘things’).

 So how does this segway into ceramics?

Classical Chinese and Japanese art is peppered with decorative symbols of Chi/Ki – from peonies and dragons on Chinese vases and paintings to the Japanese Tea Ceremony that uses the impermanence and porous nature of intuitively made raku cups as its main vessel.   It encompasses a reverence for natural rock formations and designations of ‘sacred mountains’ in China to the free-flow pulling away of solid matter to reveal a balanced but chaotic design in Japanese Kurinuki cut away ceramics.    This process of seeking perfect imperfection is a recurring theme in Japanese ceramics.    The Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi – perfect imperfection – is often characterised in Kinsugi – the mending of a broken vessel with gold resin, or staples.

David Binns – Kurinuki vessel, UCLAN UClay exhibition 2023.   This vessel shows the intuitive asymmetry in process and material in the Japanese aesthetic of Kurinuki.   My own photograph

There is an excellent video on the Ceramic Review YouTube site in which David Binns demonstrates and touches upon his fascination with the oriental aesthetic – particularly the intuitive asymmetry of Kurinuki.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AwTzsAOFKM     Ceramic Review Masterclass with David Binns, 15th February 2022.

From ‘Crafts Hero Blog’ – Francesca Torres.    Example of a Kurinuki  Chawan in black clay.    I particularly like this example in the way that it combines free-form cutting with a carefully sculpted and functional cup that sits within the intuitive chaos of the base.    This, to me, is an attempt to balance out the energies of function and non-function.      https://craftshero.com/kurinuki-pottery/

Kinsuki takes this perfect imperfection a step further in its reconstruction of broken work using gold resin.     Some of the effects are sublime and powerful.   Each flow of the resin over an already balanced vessel is  representative of the flow of the Tao over and through a tangible object – such as the stone above or a finally marbled geologically layered rock.    That the finished work can no longer perform its original function but now exists in an altered state completes the illusion of imperfect perfection.     The Chawan can no longer be used for drinking, but its aesthetic as a discrete object is heightened ……

Image of a kinsugi chawan – maker not ascribed.

HOWEVER, I find the Japanese aesthetics and interpretations of Ki/Chi through perfect imperfection too structured, too stifling.

I find the restraint and conscious unconsciousness lacking the energy that I am seeking – the free-flow resolutions I have found in Anthony Caro’s Trojan War series, or the manic energy in the work of Dylan Bowen.

Dylan Bowen demonstrating at York Ceramic Festival 2018.  My own photograph

Dylan Bowen 2018 – a constructed pot.  My own photograph

Dylan Bowen 2018 – the pot deconstructed.  My own photograph

There is an anarchic – dare I say it – madness is his work as he goes through the process of taking the clay to its limits and as he said in his demonstration ‘allowing the vessel to find its own shape and extremes’.

His work exhibited at CAL April 2024 was a wild ride of forms and decorations.   I loved that each piece had a specific character and energy – from the large take on traditional slipware salvers to the weird unglazed black figure around which all the other works hung.   And yet every piece had a balance and sense of place – an integrity that I find lacking in many more considered works.   The majority of the pieces were slipped and glazed, but the concept of intuitive mark making far removes them from even the most naïve and traditional slipware works.    A far cry from the traditionalism of his father, and to my mind much more exciting.  

In this work – in most cases – the forms work with decoration.      The major black totemic piece stands out in relying only on the making and the materiality of the clay, and it is superb.   Mad, but superb!

Dylan Bowen, CAL (Ceramic Art London) 2024

Anthony Caros Trojan War series exhibits the same uncontrolled energy: “I worked very loosely, intuitively.   I allowed the clay and the lumps …… to take me.   We pushed and beat thing into the clay until an image began to emerge.”  (The Trojan War, sculptures by Anthony Caro; Lund Humphries 1994).

But Caro goes a step further, and by elevating his anthropomorphic clay lumps onto metal and wood pedestals and into frames he takes the energy within the piece to a whole different place.   He alters the energy, causing disturbance or creating balance – ‘Poseidon’ being an example of added disturbance and ‘Aphrodite’ of added balance.

‘Poseidon’ – Anthony Caro

‘Aphrodite’   Anthony Caro

An example of turning the idea of Wabi-Sabi (perfectly imperfect) on its head is the way that American ceramic artist Glen Taylor turns the concept of Kinsugi on its head.     He doesn’t take a broken piece and perfectly restore it to aesthetic unfunctionality.   Instead he takes broken work and emphasises its intrinsically altered energy and purpose.

Glen Taylor – kinsugi teacup and saucer.

Glen Taylor  2020    Bowl and spoons

In my own practice I am trying to achieve an expression of the energy within anthropomorphic – figural – pieces that comes from the materiality of the clay body used in a damp-as-possible state.   The use of soft coil and slabs to make tubular forms gives an immediacy as the balance between slumping into its own shape and slumping into a messy lump is a fine line.   I’ll often use paper inside the form to stop it completely collapsing as it slumps – just long enough for it to get some structural integrity.      The abandon of Dylan Bowen would be lovely, but I want to work with light forms, made thinly.   I also want to leave enough structural integrity so that I can push metal, ceramic or other items into and through the body.    Sometimes these further destabilise the form, sometimes they physically destabilise it whilst giving the intrinsic energy more balance - more Te.

Early ‘go’s ‘ were too visceral.   Threw too much at the forms so the intrusions became the centre of the work rather than a part of it.

Body#1  August 2023     Buff stoneware, clear glaze over roughly slipped body.  Ceramic shards inserted.      Nice slump, and excellent start to the ‘energy through intrusions’ journey, but very much a prototype in finesse and too fiddly in execution.    At this stage too manic – but definitely something to revisit once I have stripped back the concept in subsequent work.

Body#6   August 2023

I love the roughly textured unglazed red stoneware, and the marks the kiln element made when I was placing it.   But there is too much!   The porcelain bands are too tight and just unwieldy, and the ceramic shards are not sufficiently focused on the areas of slump.

BUT the slump in the making of this one was excellent, and the addition of 3 legs to give it space underneath really worked.    The legs would have been better red stoneware, rather than porcelain – again too fiddly.

I love the balance achieved in Body#2 – though this is pre-anthropomorphised tubes.    Although the insertion of nails went somewhat wrong – sorry Cath about the kiln shelf – the nichrome wire and remains of the nails are moving towards the idea of energy first disrupted (nails and slump) and then balanced (wire).    Though glaze it not really my thing, the use of celadon on stoneware, fired to 1260 in oxidation, worked well.

Body#2   October 2023

To see if intrusion to affect energy could be achieved not just by ceramic inserts, but also by making ceramic rather than kiln coils I made a series of Tubes in various clay bodies.    Interesting, but they looked much more manufactured and less intuitive.    Maybe something to come back to in a different form …….

Body#17 November 2023  clear glazed terracotta, ceramic coil with gold metallic glaze

Body#11  January 2024.   Porcelain base, paper clay porcelain top – both with celadon glaze in oxidised firing.   Porcelain ceramic coil painted with gold acrylic.   I loved the slump of the porcelain base – and this is a clay body I will definitely be revisiting.    The flattened coils are made in exactly the same way as my other pieces, but the slump is totally different – assumed a life of its own, particularly as additional paper clay coils were added and the porcelain coil was pushed out and through and down the form.

Through a series of experiments with legs, types of legs, triangular forms with suggestions of legs and various clay bodies the work has become more stripped back, with the intrusions more precisely placed to work on the intrinsic energy within the Tube.    The same goes for decorative effect.    After looking at brushed on kanji words – the same idea as the Bagua on Laoshan Mountain, and slip transfers of designs I came round to just keeping it simple.

Effectively I am using a single glaze, my own celadon based on one used by Takeshi Yashuda.   On the different clay bodies, and fired to lower temperatures it is giving a good range of finishes that do not distract from the Tubes, but rather enhance them.   In the main the glazes are inside, whilst the intrusions and marks in the clay are external, at times picked up by copper oxide, iron or cobalt washes.

Body#28   April 2024    Porcelain paper clay with copper oxide wash – reduction firing.

I really like the form on this piece, even the coiled legs seem to work.

The beginning of adding a marker for the point of Tanden(Dantian) to the form, to symbolise the area from which the Energy of the Tao flows and where it is most strongly focused WITHIN the body of the work.     The inside is as important as the outside !

Bodies#43   June 2024.    All porcelain paper clay, copper carbonate wash and oxidised firing to 1240 (cones 5/6/7).   Suggestions of legs, all with Tanden points and various intrusions to affect their energy.    Really getting there  with the structure and restrained metal and ceramic things jabbed in and through.

Body#46   June 2024.    Red grogged terracotta with nichrome wire pushed through.   Very light dusting of clear glaze in a few places.        Really pleased with this and its companion pieces.   There is a clear energy throughout, enhanced by the wire.    This one really slumped, particularly after a black ceramic shard was pushed into its ‘hip’.   

Co-dependent#2    July 2004   Red stoneware, celadon glaze internally, fired to 1240.    Ceramic and metal inclusions, and bolted together at the ‘head’.      The difference in the energy when these were placed together was palpable.    Neither was particularly stable in the making – though they would have stood up.   But pushed and bolted together they really worked on each other.    The bolts at the top should have made them feel negatively bound together – that was my intention.   It had its own agenda and the bolts became a very positive energy overall.

Co-dependency#3    August 2024     Porcelain paper clay with copper oxide wash, internal celadon glaze and black glaze.   Each piece has slumped in the making, with the smaller tube having serious ceramic intrusions in the back.   Each with a tanden point.      Individual energies, but their combined energy is very different.     More visceral.      The triangular form is a return in many ways to an earlier project, in which I made a soft slabbed porcelain enclosed box, which represented Mushin    Here it almost represents mushin, but during the making it was pushed into the larger of the other forms, then the shape beaten into its point.  

Seeking to express Taoism and the virtue (Te) of its energy flow and balance is a definite ongoing process. 

To date the best feedback I have had is from a fellow student, who unaware of the concept I am chasing, said that when she was near my work she felt a self-conscious energy within them ……….