Tour of Ceramic Village (Plered, West Java)

Menuju tempat pengolahan tanah liat

Seorang local guide sedang menerangkan proses pengolahan tanah liat

Tungku bak.

Seorang perajin sedang loading produknya menggunakan tungku bak

Kunjungan mahasiswa ke salah satu perajin di sana

Sudut sebuah workshop di Plered

Sudut sebuah workshop di Plered

Diskusi antara perajin dan staf pengajar dari Kriya keramik ITB

Recently, we visited to ceramic village at Plered, Purwakarta City, West Java province. We are as a group of college students kriya keramik of ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology). They were 16 students and accompany by 4 lectures. From Bandung to Plered it takes 1 hour and half by bus. This activity is one of the program to the students for introducing the method of traditional ceramic makers. They have a good craftmanship and sometimes find a way that was unthinkable by students. They were introduced the common technique and facilities in some places. Looking around the clay sources and learning how to produce the workable clay by simple machine. And then came to the production places saw the facilities like the kilns, simple press machine and tools, etc.  

Plered is well known as a community of decorative ceramic. The forming technique what they use are pinching, coiling, press molding and throwing. But the most popular technique is throwing. To fire the pot they use woods as a fuel. The kiln is very traditional, just used red bricks for the construction and at the bottom there are some fire pits to put the fuel. Five years ago they have supporting from the goverment for the kiln. They got some modern kilns, used ceramic fibre and stell construction, but the fuel still from the woods. They don't use the plate for stacking and the glaze for the color, so the wares just stacked each others. For the colors they use paint (thinner base). What the carpenter or car painter need for their works also done by decoration man in the ceramic village.  

In Plered threre are 3 regions that have different uniqueness for each,  i.e. decorative ceramic (Anjun village), traditional vessel (Lio village), and vase specialities (Gunung cupu village). They use earthenware clay and will be red when fired.The products besides for the local market, they usually export. The destination are the middle east, Europe and America. The products are decorative ceramic only and mostly  flower pot and vase.