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By Benjamin Malcolm
There is at once a buzz of artistic activity and a sense of serenity
at Doy Din Dang Pottery Studio, and above all, a feeling of connectedness
to the natural world.
On any given day, workers are busy throughout the complex, shaping
and painting, and drying ceramics; and yet there are also a multitude
of sitting areas, quiet off-corners that afford a restful minute
in the shade and a view of the surrounding countryside.
With the whisper of cool breezes through trees, the tinkling of
wind chimes and warbling of birdsong, and fresh scents of forest
and earth, Doy Din Dang is the environmental and artistic Petri
dish and oasis for ceramic artist Ajaan Somluk Pantiboon, a serene
grouping of mud-building showrooms and art studios amid rice fields
and rolling hills a few kilometers north of the capital city of
Chiang Rai.
Doy Din Dang also is the testament to Ajaan Somluk's ever upward
journey of artistic devotion, a honing of skill, a fusing of style,
history, and culture, and a outpouring of passion that have produced
award-winning and internationally-recognized work.
On a cloudy day, I was greeted by both the silver-haired Ajaan
Somluk and his wife and business manager, Tamako, for a tour of
the grounds and conversation. Both had recently returned from a
month-long trip to the Northeastern U.S., where Ajaan Somluk had
instructed ceramic students at the Richmond Arts Center in Connecticut.
As we strolled about the studio and workshop, we saw the workers
busy with their tasks and the countless products of his workshop's
labors, the urns, vases, pots, and bowls, glazed and unglazed, assembled
in rows on the ground like lines of silent terracotta soldiers.
Nature is not something that just surrounds Doy Din Dang - it pours
itself literally and figuratively into the bits and pieces that
are crafted by human hands here. It is part of the style of the
stoneware, and clays and materials for glazes are farmed, mined,
and collected and "recycled" from the forests and fields
surrounding the house. This often "dirty" coloration is
a unique selling point for the ceramics here.
Nature has always been part of Ajaan Somluk's work. Ajaan Somluk
described his application of nature, in "Unity With Clay,"
a booklet created for his 2000 exhibit at Surapon Gallery in Bangkok.
"On the surface of a newly created form, I often use a swift
touch, the touch of sharp lines and strokes or motifs, the abstract
expressions of what I perceive from the natural surroundings. They
may be from the shape of hills, the movement of leaves and plants,
or the feeling of wind and sky. Though limited in my ability to
perceive the essence of nature, I try to convey, through a swift
motion of line and stroke, a sense of the freshness or liveliness
which nature presents. When the lines are touched upon the surface,
the form becomes lively joined with the power and beauty of glazes,
all in unity in life, with clay."
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The grounds and local villages provide more than just material
for pottery, they provide personnel too. Since the studio's inception
in 1991, Ajaan Somluk has drawn staff only from the local village,
training 14 of the local farmers in the way of making pottery. The
farmers split time between the studio and the fields, finding creativity
in one and a sense of timeless rhythm in the other.
They are as much part of the creative process as Ajaan Somluk,
and there is almost daily dialogue as they produce pieces both on
order and independently. Doy Din Dang's success comes through its
constant experimentation with new colors, shapes, and techniques.
"It's definitely not like a factory," said Tamako.
"We teach them the whole process … not just one thing,"
said Ajaan Somluk. "Each person can do many things."
Ajaan Somluk's own path has taken him through Thailand and overseas.
His breakthrough moment occurred a little over fifteen years ago,
in a refugee camp in Northeast Thailand, where he worked as a ceramics
instructor for Khmer refugees. For it was in this camp that Ajaan
Somluk decided to take the biggest step of his life, to seek ceramics
training in Japan and open up the doors to even greater artistic
realization.
"It changed my life," he said of his five-year tenure
as a volunteer. "After that I had a question for myself - I
knew I needed to study more."
Ajaan Somluk took his potter's experience to Japan where he spent
three years under the tutelage of one of that country's living national
treasures and Karatsu-style ceramics master, Tarouemon Nakazato.
Ajaan Somluk's love of art began far before the refugee camps,
as any artist's passion does; all the way back to his beginnings
in the late Fifties and early Sixties as a boy growing up in Chiang
Khong, the far northern community on the banks of the Mekong River,
where he played as a boy. After high school, he headed to Chiang
Mai to study at the Northeastern Institute of Technology, and majored
in ceramics in the Faculty of Industrial Design. While at Chiang
Mai, Ajaan Somluk worked at a local ceramic studio, and gained awards
for his designs. The awards would be the first of many - Ajaan Somluk
has won numerous awards from ceramic competitions and exhibitions
in Thailand, Japan and New Zealand.
After his college experience, Ajaan Somluk went to work with Khmer
refugees, under the auspices of the Japanese NGO group, SVA, to
teach ceramics. It was there that he first met Tamako, who was working
in a youth program. In 1987, he made his decision to study in Japan.
Japan is a ceramics Mecca, and over the years, has incorporated
styles from the Mid-east, China, the Koreas, and Europe.
"That is one good thing about Japan," he said. "They
absorb and then cultivate things into their own terms."
Not surprisingly, Ajaan Somluk has absorbed and then cultivated
these styles as well, and is a wealth of knowledge of Khmer, Thai,
and Japanese ceramics. In his workshop, he pointed out a line of
pottery on a shelf high above a door and had me guess at the styles
- among them were Northeastern Ban Chiang, Angkor-style, and Northern-style
water containers. Ajaan Somluk's forte is history and culture. His
favorite TV channels, not surprisingly, are National Geographic
and Discovery Channel.
Both Ajaan Somluk and Tamako had such pleasant memories from rural
setting of their NGO experience that they wanted to recreate it
upon moving to Thailand. Setting up Doy Din Dang in 1991 was not
without its risks, but they were determined to go ahead with it
regardless. Ajaan Somluk designed the mud houses himself.
"Many people laughed at us," he said. "They thought
we wouldn't survive" so far from the traditional pottery centers
just north of Bangkok and outside of Chiang Mai.
The process was "slow and sure," but success has built
through word of mouth. Now, most of the studio's orders come from
overseas.
I asked both of them at one point why Doy Din Dang had succeeded
despite people's earlier admonitions, and both replied at once,
almost echoing each other.
"We do all kinds of things. If we do something good, the people
will see it," Ajaan Somluk said.
"If you put something good into the world, people will go
there," Tamako said.
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