Long Wen, Shanghaier, learned calligraphy, seal carving, and painting as a child, and he started making purple sand pottery only more than ten years ago. His purple sand pottery works are so successful on the market that they are always out of supply. Long Wen is the first wechat friend of Wang Han who also prefaced his first book. This year he published a new book “Yi Tang Shou Ji” and built himself a study in the heart of the city. He drinks and conceives new works in his study at such ease.
I am Long Wen
Seal carving and calligraphy are among my favorite pastimes
Now I’m more devoted to making purple sand objects
This is actually a study
About 40 square meters separated into three functional spaces
One for having tea and doing brush writing
One for resting
And one for making pottery
At the first day of the decoration
I carved a seal
With the Chinese “宜堂” design
It’s Chinese characters during the Warring States period
“宜堂”, pronounced yi tang, means at ease
Or we say “comfortable and free from care”
This is a Genkan entryway
Which is organized in a way that makes you feel embraced by nature
For decoration I found a lovely Taihu stone
Blew it up and 3D printed it
And had my practice letters pasted up on it
Giving it a modern sense
“There is no royal road to learning”
It’s constantly reminding me to work hard
The entire space is scattered with Chinese elements
In fact I find traditional and modern style could stay in a harmony
I have an exhibition shelf here
Here I put my works
On display
Once I saw someone selling a kind of gourd
The gourd has a leveled bottom
It’s shaped like a pot
So I bought the gourd
And painted each side of it
Then I conceived the blueprint of making a pot like that
The most fascinating part of the work
Is how it breaks the balance that pots usually value
The stem doesn’t fall right in the middle
It leans to the side of the circle
So the radius of this side is longer than that of the other
And when I try to incorporate this character into my work
I met quite a few challenges
On the pot I engraved four Chinese characters
“香出五指”, literally translated as fragrance from the fingers
In the space where I have tea
Other purple sand makers’ works are not allowed
This is my study
I want it to be 100% me
And mixing in others’ stuff isn’t very helpful
In the intermediate area my main activity is resting
When I have one or two friends over
Sit down and have some tea
I have a collection of Japanese teaware and floral containers
And that is where they shine
I created a calligraphy work in the 1990s
And entrusted the Arts and Crafts Research Institute to make it a screen
In the form of lacquer art, gilded and antique finished
It cost 36 thousand in 1991
And their monthly salary
Was two or three hundred
This is my studio
I do carving here
Pottery making here
And sketching here
And these are firing testers
Craft is close participation at every stage
That makes it more fun and more controllable
So from firing to making clay
I personally attend to it
Firing testers, engraving, the seal
I do it all by myself
Personally I believe
That aesthetic can be universal
I read and do calligraphy when I’m free
You know, to refine my cultivation and taste
Your work is an honest manifestation
Of your taste
The book “Yi Tang Shou Ji”
Is a log of my daily life
Basically it answers the question
To make such purple sand pots, how should one live
The book includes my calligraphy, paintings
And seal carving works
Simply by siting at your working station
Focusing on what at hand
You are becoming better at the techniques
But not producing art
In this bustling city
This is a land of my own
It’s just like being a practitioner
In this mundane world
You need a pure heart
