People often like to make mountains out of mole hills.  For example, girls at a hair salon might call themselves color or nail technicians; a janitor may describe himself as being in custodial management or as a maintenance technician.  In China, people like to say that they own or run a factory, even though that factory might be two people with sewing machines and several clothing racks, in a gutted apartment, in an old apartment complex.

However, it is funny, to me, when that moniker is applied to art.  In truth, in the history of Yixing teapots, there were several studios that employed a number of artists, and they were called factories (they still are, today).  For example, First Yixing Factory is the studio where the more famous teapot artists work.  Second factory is the place that second tier artists work.  The concept of working on ones own, in teapot art, is relatively new since the Communists came to power, in the middle of the twentieth century.  During that time, for example, all teapot artists were forced to work at factories, and they were only allowed to use a number, not their own signatures, to even sign teapot art.  At Present, First and Second Factories still exist and do employ good artists, but many artists have gone off on their own, opening their own studios by themselves or with younger artists who are their apprentices.  Some still want to refer to their new studios as factories, while others call them by the more appealing name: studio.

Of course, Andy Warhol called his studio “The Factory”, but that was all part of tongue-in-cheek, pop culture avant-garde humor, not a projection of importance or size, the way that the word is used, in China, today.  Moreover, we see it in many cases, in the Chinese art markets.  The studio where we get hand-embroidered scenes and portraits, also, calls itself a factory.  We know an Australian man in hand-painted reproductions, in Shenzhen, who told us that he has two factories that produce them.

Wherever the idea comes from, it is a misuse of the word for the case of art, and instead of making it seem more professional it cheapens it and makes it sound less than professional, creative or artistic.  Which is not to say that there are no art factories, in China.  Indeed, even a recent article about Zhang Huan, famous for his ash Buddhas, described the art factory where others produced “his” work, and we know other artists who also do that kind of thing, although they are not represented in our gallery.  However, when we mention that a teapot, in the Leona Craig Art Gallery, is from First or Second Yixing Factory, remember: those are more properly thought of as ceramic sculpture studios.