The Hands Behind Ab Ovo
Inside the Jingdezhen workshop, Ab Ovo moved from mould to hand, from hand to surface, then slowly into its final form.
The process was more active than we expected. In one corner, a younger maker worked with the moulds, pouring each one by hand and later easing the egg out with a fine tool. The gesture was small, but it needed control. The ceramic body had to be released without pressing too hard into the surface or damaging the edge. At another station, a female maker cleaned the eggs with water and a solution we could not fully identify. She worked
quickly, but with a rhythm that made the process feel familiar to her. The surface was wiped, checked, and prepared before moving on to firing. Nearby, 李春奇 worked on the finishing. He painted the speckles by hand, then used a rod-like tool to trim the edges of a white mould. What impressed us was the consistency of the workflow. In a small space, every person knew the next movement of the object.
The eggs were not made to look identical. That was what made them feel natural.
What stayed with us was the order of the workshop. It was small, but the workflow was clear. One person handled the moulds, another cleaned the surface, while Li Chunqi returned to the egg with paint, tools, and small corrections. The making did not feel staged for us. It felt practiced. That control is part of
what Ab Ovo carries. The object is not made to look perfectly machine-made. You can still see the hand in the painted speckles, the surface, and the small differences between each piece. But those differences feel natural, not unfinished. They give the egg its character without taking away from the form.
- Location
- Jing De Zhen,
Jiang Xi, China - Craftsman
- Li Chunqi /
Li Yusong /
Liu Weizhen
What stayed with us was the pace of it. In a small workshop, every egg passed through the same sequence of attention.
The consistency came from repeating the same small actions again and again, one piece at a time.
Truly a craft of its own, and a rare thing to witness in person.