Zisha clay - source

Hi, I googled around for a while but couldn't find any source for unburnt zisha clay except of course those of factory #1 and# 2. Does anyone here know of an online vendor for it - raw - or are there any alternatives ? I did some pottery a couple years back and would like to add some selfmade Yixing pots to my collection.

Karsten / Darjeeling

Reply to
psyflake
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It is apparently impossible to find abroad. The Washington Folklife Festival had a fellow two years ago making Yixing pots who came over from China with his tools and a supply of clay. Some of what was left over after the event wound up with a local ceramics guy who is trying to analyze it.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I am a collector and from my experience the "clay" is more like soup and is not hand sculpted like clay but poured into moulds and fired. I'm sure it could be worked as traditional pottery clay, but I'm not sure to what results. Yixing teapots are almost entirely dependent on the firing process for quality, it accounts for almost all of the characteristics in a top quality teapot. I would assume that this would be the hardest part to get right in the process.

I do not know of any way to get unfired zisha, and in fact the last time I spoke with a friend that lives near there he was telling me how the quality of the clay has gone down substantially and that top grade stuff is very rare. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I tend to believe him since he lives nearby and is pretty knowledgeable of Zisha and Yixing teaware. It would be cool though to make your own, I know I have thousands of ideas in my head.

Reply to
Dominic T.

Alas, as I'd really like to make a couple pots myself I think it's better to look for alternatives than trying to get my hands on what may probably turn out as some 3rd grade mud. Back in my university years I used to job as a control engineer in a ceramics factory. AFAIR they have some fancy equipment to analyze all sorts of glass and ceramics, physically and chemically. Time to pay those guys a surprise visit, and do a little analysis of my not too sophisticated little Yixing pots.

Karsten / Darjeeling

Dom> > Hi,

Reply to
psyflake

There is an indiviual Chinese potter in Cupertino CA that has a site chineseclayart.com that sold zisha, tools etc.

Sasha.

Reply to
Scientist

Many folks are saying this. I've heard people say also that there is little real zisha left because of over-mining the area. Many "zisha" pots that are sold in shops here aren't even zisha at all, just normal clay. It's like everything else around here. Most of the good stuff is told abroad while the lower quality stuff is sold to the locals. About 99 percent of the pots sold here are factory made; even the ones with "paper" backing them up to being handmade. This market is just as dubious as the Pu'er market.

Reply to
Mydnight

This is what I was talking about in the message above (as Scientist - :)

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Also on the same site - tools for zisha modelling, shapes, tonns of stuff. As far as I know this is a unique shop, I was looking for years and this is the only one I found.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Well, I can say that an awful lot of "zisha" pots sold here in the US aren't the real thing either. Maybe even most of them. So it is not just the local market that is flooded with the fakes, it is the global market.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Mydnight wrote: Well, I can say that an awful lot of "zisha" pots sold here in the US aren't the real thing either.

Not only in the US but also in China (and Thailand (Bangkok), Malaysia (Penang/KL), ... were you can find lots of pots on sale). Some of the vendors I asked in Kunming and elsewhere freely admitted that even some of their higher priced pots were not made of real zisha. Took me a lot of time to get my humble collection together. I really wonder if the zisha they sell on the aforementioned website is the real thing.

Karsten / Darjeeling

Reply to
psyflake

Actually that is most likely not real zisha clay, unfortunately. I have been a Yixing collector for about 10 years now, and have had many conversations with actual craftsmen. True "purple clay" is very scarce and costs more than $10 a lb. even at the source, most likely this is the same lower quality clay that a lot of knock offs are being made from. Nowhere on the site linked to, do they claim that this is real zisha, and if they were a true supplier of real zisha clay they would have that information prominently displayed (and in numerous places) since there is such demand for it.

However, that being said, I would actually say to use this type of clay for any endeavors the novice may want to pursue. It is cheap, decent quality, and will work fine. Leave the real thing to the real masters, I'd shudder to think of real zisha going from a teapot to an odd ash tray in the hands of a beginner with more money than skill.

I have seen real artisans at work, and it is an amazing sight. We're talking many years of study and practice and understanding before ever even getting started.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

When I said "here," I meant China; I'm here now. heh. Sorry for the confusion.

I just think it's a sad state of affairs when some of the most treasured cultural portions of a country have been saturated with so many fakes that even experts can hardly be able to tell the fake from the real. This is the reality that we are facing when we dabble in tea culture, I'm afraid.

Reply to
Mydnight

It is sad in some ways but good in another. It is only bad when fakes are passed off as genuine for very high prices, but enabling the average person around the world to own a lower quality Yixing at a low price is nice. I know I have been fooled a couple of times though and even a friend of mine who's parents grew up around that region have been fooled by the same ones when I showed them.

I don't buy into the ultra rare and expensive pots, so for me they are either to be used or to be displayed. I have great respect for a number of older artisans and appreciate the very expensive ones, I just don't have a need or desire to buy them.

I will say though that the few true zisha pots I do own that were created by highly skilled craftsmen are truly excellent and worth every penny. It is a double edged sword though and when a person becomes turned off by a cheap recreation that doesn't perform or falls apart it is a shame. I guess I just have mixed feelings about the whole state of affairs.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

And I think its good that there are so many fakes. If one can tell the difference between an original and fake one can choose the original. If one can't - one does not deserve the original. Just throwing money at something and expecting it to be true is contrary to all I learned from life. Its the work of heart and mind that allow you to separate gems from shit. And you should be eager and able to do that work.

Recently in NY I was in a house of a very wealthy man, his wife took me on a tour of their East Side apartment. They had a lovely collection of Russian early 20 century art. The art is Russian, I am Russian, so it felt appropriate for her (me just roll eyes). She was pointing at things and chattering "This is Mashkin? Mishkin? We bought it in Paris and the price was brutal". It was Mashkov and it was priceless. Truly, I wish it was a fake.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Actually, you should not pass a judgment before you have a chance to examine. If they are not cocky about it, it may be because Chinese tend to be more humble then some of our homegrown "experts". Take a good look at the site, take a look at who runs it.

I had a chance to examine a sample three years ago from a geological point of view and the quartz content, the size, the degree of roundness of quartz particles looked right. What test do you use to authenticate zisha in general and yixing zisha in particular? If you know about a geological, petrologic, mineralogical or any other tests that can reliably determine "yixingness" of zisha other than being in a form of raw sandstone, please, share it with us. I will buy some clay, divide it in several samples then and submit it to this test at different labs at my own expense. Then you will not be just bad-mouthing people you do not know, but generating knowledge.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Boy am I glad that I'm not a collector, I probably would have gone mad during my travels in China, be it Yixing pots or Pu Erhs. After having been to China 5 times I'd say it's almost impossible for a foreigner without connections to get his/her hands on the real stuff. Keeping the huge language barriers in mind and not forgetting the local buyers who most probably get the better pots at better prices anyway I'm really glad that I found some humble "authentic" pots at all. How to tell ? Wherever I went I kept my pots ready to show them off to all kinds of tea vendors I visited. There were two pots among the 5 I bought on my last trip that didn't cause any of the vendors or bystanders to break out laughing when I showed them around. The other 3 were always good for a laugh, especially when I mentioned the prices I paid for them. Those 2 though (one of them slightly leaking) used to be passed around, received closer examinations and sometimes were loudly discussed. In the end I spend some time curing all 5 of them but those two, well I guess they're special little pots indeed, and after 100s of liters of Darjeelings during the last 4 months I can't wait to be back home and enjoy some Oolongs and Pu Erhs for a little change of pace. And then in December I'll be back to China, let me see how they rip me off this time around.

Karsten / Darjeeling

Reply to
psyflake

I humbly disagree. China is full of authentic stuff that can be obtained for reasonable prices if you know what you are looking for and can identify it. If you are that type of a collector, you will find local Chinese antique markets a wonderful hunting ground. If one is a Christie - type collector and one wants to buy great pieces occasionally protected by great reputation of a seller - then you can buy at state antique shops like the one at Gugun (and also there is actual Christie! :)

It is the collector that wants to buy real (and popular) stuff for peanuts and cannot distinguish it from fakes who has little chance in China. But there is a secret - such a "collector" has little chance finding this kind of deals anywhere. The greatest collectors are the ones who start seeing the beauty where noone saw it before. They buy what others consider useless and build collections that one day convince the world otherwise. Then the eyes of the world gets open and now everyone and his uncle has to have it. With all the consequences.

I find the situation wonderful and fascinating. Because the real yixing zisha is so easily faked and so many collectors are disappointed, the prices for antique zisha remains low. Some of the so-called experts both in the West and in China may be good at reliably identifying the obvious and not-so-obvious fakes, but they can also proclaim a genuine item a fake because they do not use scientific approach. There are reliable ways to authenticate yixing zisha material by its clay minerals and particles content. That requires cutting off a tiny sliver of material (I usually do it from the internal part of the handle) and making what is called in petrography a "thin section" of it and examining it under polarized light microscope. Sometimes just polishing the small spot on the surface is enough., but you have to be an expert on reflection microscopy (metallurgical microscopy) and its less common than the transmission microscopy with thin sections.

Other, completely non-destructive methods based on unique physical properties of zisha can be used. One that I like the most is the measurements of interstitial porosity. Yet another - X-ray scatter.(debyegram) of a tiny sample that you can shave off the same spot - inside the handle. And it can be done mostly for free in the locally because almost all state universities have programs to allow public to use their lab capabilities for non-commercial work..

I am not a "collector" and I value some of my fakes as much as my originals for their beauty and craftsmanship. I use them and occasionally break them up and this is life. I find the science of yixing clay geology and zisha identification fascinating and hope one day to find a good deposit of zisha here in the States. And I accept the simple fact that market laws will always make it inevitable that demand will be met by supply. In antique market supply always mean certain level of fakes and it was that way from times immemorial. This has nothing to do with China specifically. European art and jewellery markets are full of fakes. You should have seen the large (and I mean - large!) pearls made like a jigsaw puzzles from slivers of mother-of-pearl from Holland and Germany made by the best jewellery firms since 18 century! And yet I hear everywhere voices that complain about Chinese fakes with quite a racist undertone - implying that somehow Chinese are less to be trusted than the rest of us. If some of my fellow Americans really think that people on this continent is more trustworthy, that only means that they never had any dealings with American financial industry. Or legal industry. Or bought a car. Or looked at their medical coverage carefully. Or lost their pension. Or heard the word "Enron". Or voted last year.

"Its all the same f***ing day, man" as Janice Joplin once said.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

snip

Dominic, I'd sure like to see photos of tose treasured pots of yours. Did you put them up on the web or perhaps in one of the groups? I'm going to try to put my collection up on the web. (Mine are mostly minor, but I'm fond of them all, and use them for different purposes. None are for display.)

In the part of your post that I snipped, you and Mydnight discussed fakery in Pu'erh. If I can't tell the difference between an authentic and a fake cake, then that fake is pretty damned good. The only problem becomes the phoney attributions and claims made for it, right?

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

Alex ChaihorskyuPLNf.39147$F snipped-for-privacy@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net3/2/06

19: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

Sometimes it is not the gem buried in shit; it's the discovery that what you thought was shit is gem.

Wow. So do I. And why isn't it in a museum? Tell them the glory accrues to those who donate.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

Alex ChaihorskyEtVNf.55907$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com3/3/06

06: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

Sasha,

I am impressed with the sentiments of your post. Well done! BTW, did you get my e-mail regarding the teas from Abkhazia? Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

Hi Sasha, thanks for the reply, but as said before I'm glad I'm not a collector, I was just in the market for pots made of real zisha clay for everyday use, no artworks, I'm still more interested in the tea that comes out of them. But now, with that valuable information you supplied I'll be on the lookout for some more fancy pots the next time around. Maybe I get hooked one day and start collecting. PS: I'm pretty familar with the analytical tools you've mentioned (X-Ray scatter, reflection microscopy, ...) from my university time and a couple jobs and maybe they come in handy during my next trip.

Thanks again, Karsten / Darjeeling

Reply to
psyflake

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