Touch of Cham art

      Cham craftsperson Chau Thi Co of Bau Truc Pottery village shapes wares of different designs and sizes from clay only by her talented hands rather than a mould and uses simple tools to turn the products into art for daily use or decorations. That’s a touch of Cham art as local people say.
The traditional way that Co and other potters in the renowned pottery village in the central province of Ninh Thuan shape their wares makes their products quite different from the works of other villages across the country.
At the village in Phuoc Dan commune, villagers rely on a firm anvil on which they mould their wares by hand rather than a wheel like we see at many pottery villages in Vietnam such as Bat Trang in the north and Binh Duong in the south, where the craftsmen use the wheel as an indispensable tool.
The craftsmen of Bau Truc mix the smooth clay and fine clean sand that they can only find from the Quao river and then soften the mixture until it is pliable. With skillful touches, extraordinary durable masterpiece comes into being.
Shaping pieces of clay into a product takes about eight minutes or more depending on its size and complexity, and the craftsmen walk around the base when they are molding their wares. They sometimes use a wet cloth to smooth their products and cement the mixture.
After shaping comes decoration. The Bau Truc potters use shells and other simple tools they find on the beach or in the village to create flowers and other designs as decorations for their works before these wares are sun-dried.
Co said that the wares must be dried under the scorching sun for three days before being fired. Unlike at other pottery villages, the craftsmen of Bau Truc lay wood on the ground before putting the wares on it and then cover them with rice straw.
They set fire to the straw first and then the fire burns the wood until the wares are well-baked after three or four hours depending on the batch of pottery. Co said the ash of the straw keeps the heat to ensure every part of the pottery is well-baked.
More than 400 households live at Bau Truc village and 80% of them make pottery in the traditional style, which is said to have been handed down from their ancestors of thousands of years ago.
Located 10 kilometers south of Phan Rang Municipality, Bau Truc is considered one of the oldest pottery villages in Southeast Asia. Nowadays, the fame of its hi-quality unique pottery has gone beyond the quiet village to Binh Thuan, Lam Dong and other localities in Vietnam as well as to other parts of the world.