The Handle Man

One of the highlights of my entire life was the 4 months that I spent with Big John and the USU gang in Jingdezhen, China. We had a guest artist Mr. Jin that made a room full of perfectly symmetrical pots by walking around a 5 gallon plastic pail backwards with a huge coil of clay up his arm . He pinched and paddled and made all these majestic water jars. He asked me to put handles on them. Well for me this was like opening for The Stones. I couldn't have been more happy. That day we were firing the wood kiln and Mr.Jin at the end of his making demo day came and sat squat style with a cold beer and looked into the firebox. We didn't understand a word each other was saying but the USU gang sensed Mr. Jin was in the company of people he liked and was doing something he had done a million times. I wonder if his dragon kiln still roars????????? The other happy face is the gatekeeper that sold us our bing piju ( cold beer).