Pots as far as the eye can see-Pt.2

It is very common to see carts of pots being pulled through the streets of Jingdezhen. They might be going from the pottery to the decorators, or from the decorators to the kilns. There are large gas car kilns spread through out the individual factories. (By factories I mean the pottery producing neighborhoods that have grown out of old state run factories. It is common to see families living above their workshops so these factories become small villages within the larger city.) The community kilns are rented by the cubic centimeter to individual artists/shops. After the pots are fired they are unloaded and wrapped in grass bundles to be transported to other parts of the city to sell.

One advantage of large scale commercial production is that glazes have been tested and retested to fit the clay bodies perfectly. You can buy a pristine Celedon that doesn't craze on the local porcelain. Copper reds, rutile blues, and crystalline matts are at your disposal for ridiculously cheap prices. The glazes are sold premixed in liquid form so that all you must do is apply them. If you wanted to be extra lazy you can hire a glaze person to come and glaze them for you. This highly specified division of labor allows international artists to come to Jingdezhen with designs and have them realized in a relatively small amount of time.