After the presentation

Country: Spain

Manufactory:  Lladro

Date of establishment: 1970

Sculptor: Salvador Furio

Height (cm): 45

Porcelain Story

For many years, two such tired clowns stood side by side in my office. Outwardly, they are almost indistinguishable. Just one is varnished, and the second is made in biscuit (that is, not so glossy, reflecting light). For all their outward absolute similarity, they are different. And even an equally tired look, and even an equally faded look - everything is different ... Such a comparison of two classical techniques for making porcelain products demonstrates the author's vision of the image, transmitted in different ways - depending on the desire to "highlight" one or another characteristic of the internal state hero.

I'll explain to you why these clowns have been standing in the editor's office for so many years, not only not bothering me, but on the contrary, often reminding me of ... editorial duties.

After the publication of the newspaper "Kievskiye Vedomosti" (namely, my independent editorial path began with this project in 1992), I was destined to make my first trip abroad to China. That was December 1992. And the main impression on me was the huge number of people - men and women, on the street and in factories, on bicycles and in buses - in identical green coats of a paramilitary pattern with bright gold buttons. China was then still poor and half-starved.

When exactly ten years later I visited China again, I saw a completely different country - not yet very rich, but very purposeful - to new achievements in literally every direction of its development. It was already a completely different China. And I will talk about it some other time. In the meantime, I want to go back to 1992.

That first visit to the Middle Kingdom (as this huge country is often called, which made many important discoveries in human history in different periods) was remembered not only by visiting the grandiose Great Wall of China, not only by the contrast of handicraft production of unusually beautiful Chinese thermoses (which in Soviet times were incredibly scarce among us) in workshops with broken windows and icy steps, not only convincing stories about the revival of a great country (which soon really became obvious to the whole world), but also a visit to a circus performance in a small House of Culture.

I have never seen such fantastic skill of circus acrobats, clowns, tightrope walkers and conjurers. And this despite the fact that frequent trips to our world-famous Kyiv circus gave every reason to believe that the Soviet circus is one of the best in the world. At the same time, the performance of a frail young man made the greatest impression on me, who, spinning on high and thin twigs of breaking porcelain plates mounted on them, as a result, brought their number to forty! Simultaneously and synchronously spinning! The main task of their young "conductor" was not to miss the moment when the tempo of twisting any of the cymbals fades, in order to give it the necessary rhythm in time, to prevent the easily breaking attributes of a unique number from falling one after another. For me, who at that time was in a state of mastering the role of an editor, it was so important for myself to determine the symbolic image of just such "conducting" that I suddenly perceived what I saw as a clue to the technology of managing a large creative team. It was so unexpected and at the same time so understandable: just twist each "plate" in time, avoiding critical moments that could negatively affect the overall process of the synchronous implementation of the daily creative miracle...

How great it was - it was at that moment to come to an understanding of my "conductor" role! Then I thought about the Chinese circus more than once. And I often remember even now, looking at the two almost identical clowns, tired of the performance that has just ended, who have lived in my editorial office for many years.