Inside a Rural Wood-Fired Kiln: A Young Potter’s Life Choice in Jingdezhen
Today, we’re going to explore a rural wood-fired kiln workshop in Jingdezhen. It’s October 2025, autumn in Jingdezhen. This wood-fired kiln workshop is located in the countryside, by Yutian Lake, on the outskirts of Jingdezhen. From the city center, it takes about 45 minutes by car to get here.
With me today is Mr. Chen – a ceramic sculpture artist from Chengdu. We’re driving toward Yutian Lake. So what makes this place special? Today, most people live in cities and are used to industrial, assembly-line production. But this wood-fired kiln workshop is an artistic space rooted in nature.
The owner of this kiln is Mr. Fu. We usually call him Boss Fu. He’s a post-90s ceramic artist, and the name of his kiln is quite poetic — “Nisu Wood-Fired Kiln.” “Ní” means clay, and “Sù” means to speak or to tell a story.
As we arrive at the Yutian Lake area, the natural surroundings immediately remind me of the British Romantic poet William Wordsworth, who believed that pastoral landscapes, nature, and the human inner world are deeply connected.
Yutian Lake is exactly that kind of place —quiet, pastoral, and almost poetic in atmosphere. This naturally makes me curious. I find myself wondering: why would such a young kiln owner, Mr. Fu, choose to build a wood-fired kiln here? Is he escaping reality? Or is he searching for a place where his spirit can rest and recover?
Mr. Fu’s wood-fired kiln is also his family living space. Work and daily life are combined into one. This reflects a very typical lifestyle choice among local Jingdezhen ceramic artists.
He has combined his longing for a pastoral life with the practical reality of making a living through ceramics, and built this Yutian Lake wood-fired kiln workshop according to his own ideals.
Over the past more than 80 years, as Jingdezhen’s ceramic industry developed, traditional handmade wood-fired kilns were gradually abandoned and replaced by gas kilns and electric kilns,
which use natural gas and electricity as energy sources.
As a result, wood-fired kilns have become increasingly rare. Today, most of the wood-fired kilns still in use can only be found in rural or suburban areas, and their numbers have greatly declined.
Mr. Fu also studied ceramic art at university. More than ten years ago, he once ran a guesthouse in the Sanbao Road area of Jingdezhen. As competition intensified and he reconsidered the direction of his life and creative work, he decided to make a change.
At that time, running a guesthouse in Sanbao had become extremely competitive—the pressure was intense. Eventually, he drove through several villages around Jingdezhen. In the end, at the Yutian Lake Reservoir, here in Yutian Lake, he finally found a place that matched the vision he had in mind.
This wood-fired kiln workshop pursues the natural, unrepeatable qualities that come from wood-firing. That’s why it has also attracted some local Jingdezhen artists, who come here specifically to fire their works in a wood-fired kiln. Of course, in order to meet different market demands, Mr. Fu also has a gas kiln on the property, which uses natural gas as its energy source.
The kiln is located in a farmhouse courtyard in Yutian Village. Mr. Fu has invested over 300,000 RMB in renovations, transforming this place into a space where one can live, fire ceramics, and host visiting artists,all while preserving a strong rural atmosphere.
Surrounded by such natural scenery, the Yutian Lake wood-fired kiln workshop may be more than just a place to fire ceramics —it represents a choice of lifestyle.
Dialogue segment :
— What’s the name of this village?
— Yutian Village.
— Oh, Yutian Village.
— The rent here is much cheaper than in Sanbao, right?
— It is cheaper, but not as cheap as people imagine.
— Is this whole place yours, or is it rented?
— It’s rented. I rented the place first and then invested in renovating it.
— Even the unfinished structure cost over 30,000 RMB,
and the renovation itself cost several hundred thousand — over 300,000 RMB in total.
— Right.
So after exploring this place with us, what kind of feelings do you have? Do you like this artist’s choice? If you do, please give him a thumbs-up and leave a comment below the video.
