Helping Preserve the Ancient Art of Cambodian Ceramics

ricca — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:03:00 GMT

The article below is from Middlesex Community College’s Spring 2013 Profiles magazine. Additional information is available by clicking on these links:

Art Professor Margaret Rack and Lowell artist Yary Livan in front of the Cambodian ceramics kiln they helped build on the grounds of the Lowell National Historical Park.

While Art Professor Margaret Rack teaches foundational art courses at Middlesex and sculpts heavy metal in her own artwork – she has an undeniable soft spot for Cambodian ceramics.

With the help of dedicated college and community partners, Rack has successfully completed a 10-year effort to build a smokeless, wood-fired Cambodian ceramics kiln in Lowell.

Constructed on the grounds of Lowell National Historical Park (LNHP), the kiln will help preserve an ancient art form that was almost wiped out by the Cambodian genocide. It also enables Lowell artist Yary Livan, one of the few surviving masters of Cambodian ceramics, to continue working and teaching a new generation of artists.

As an art form, Cambodian pottery dates back to the ancient Angkor Kingdom (802-1431), explained Rack. “Now that we have the kiln, our hope is that with Yary passing on his knowledge and skills, we’ll make Lowell an international destination for Cambodian ceramics,” she said.

Funded by Middlesex and the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation, and completed in September, the innovative kiln is located at 220 Aiken St. It was designed with guidance from Japanese kiln maker Masakazu Kusakabe, who modified Livan’s traditional kiln to be smokeless and more environmentally friendly.

An MCC adjunct professor of art and artist-in-residence at LNHP, Livan teaches ceramics to Middlesex and Lowell Public Schools students, as well as members of the community. All student work is fired in the new kiln under Livan’s supervision.

“Yary is believed to be one of two survivors of the brutal Pol Pot era who was educated and trained in the classical art of Cambodian ceramics,” explained Rack. When the Vietnam War spread to Cambodia in the early 1970s, there was a thriving ceramics department at Phnom Penh’s Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA), she said.

When the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia, all colleges and schools were closed, and teachers and students were targeted for extinction. “You could not reveal that you were educated or you’d be killed,” said Rack. After years of struggle in the Cambodian killing fields and then in a Thai refugee camp, Livan eventually immigrated to Lowell in 2001. His family was able to follow three years later. The seeds for the Cambodian Kiln Project were planted in 2003, when Rack and Livan worked together on an award-winning public-art project in Boston. As a faculty member at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), Rack recruited Livan to work with her and a group of predominantly Asian youth as part of SMFA’s Youth-Art-In-Action Program.

Together, the group created a large, ceramic sculpture, based on an iconic Cambodian monument. The project was recognized in 2005 with a Coming Up Taller Award from the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, presented in a White House ceremony.

When Rack was hired as a full professor at Middlesex in 2004, she began teaching art at MCC’s campus in Lowell, which has the second largest Cambodian population in the U.S. That’s when the idea of building a kiln came to her. “I just had the idea in the back of my mind,” she said. “Yary didn’t have his own studio or kiln, and didn't have an artistic outlet."

Rack began helping Livan write grant proposals to support his work. He received a series of Massachusetts Cultural Council grants to teach in the Lowell schools, and in 2012 was awarded a fellowship and named a Master of Traditional Arts.

The Kiln Project really began to take off when Rack was selected to participate in a cultural-exchange trip to Cambodia in the summer of 2010. She was among 13 MCC and Lowell Public Schools teachers who took part in a U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad to promote communication between American and Cambodian educators. “I made building a kiln the focus of my Fulbright-Hays project,” explained Rack. “I wanted to save this art form before it completely goes out of practice.”

While in Cambodia, she met with kiln master Proeung Kang, the only other living expert in Cambodian ceramics. (He had studied with Livan at RUFA.) Rack persuaded Kang to travel to Lowell as a visiting summer scholar and help build the kiln.

With Kang onboard, Rack came home to raise money for the project, and ground was broken in June 2012. Over the next few months, Kang and Livan built the innovative kiln, which uses one-third less wood than a traditional Cambodian kiln.

Now that it’s up and running, Rack considers the kiln only the first step. “I thoroughly enjoy this work with Yary,” she said. “But I also enjoy working with other Lowell art teachers and helping them figure out how to better connect with their students and the local community.

“Art has the power to make those kinds of connections happen, said Rack. “We’re just beginning to make this vision of the community and the college come to life.”

Rack, Proeung Kang (left) and Livan (right) with President Carole Cowan and Executive VP Jay Linnehan.

By Kathy Register, Middlesex Community College

Wood fire kiln blessing ceremony

haml — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:37:00 GMT

On Thursday, June 28, the blessing ceremony for the new Cambodian wood fire kiln took place in Lowell. In order to ensure a successful project, the potters Yary Livan and Proeung Kang made offerings and prayed to the designer of Angkor Wat, King Suryavarman II, whom Yari calls “the hero of construction.” Proeung just arrived from Cambodia where he teaches at the Secondary School of Fine Arts. Yary and Proeung had not seen each other for a long time, although they both grew up in the same village along the Mekong Delta and studied pottery together.

Two Buddhist monks in bright orange robes from the Vatt Khmer temple in Lowell came for the occasion. On the altar, Yary prepared offering of grapes, apples, cherries, and a whole roast chicken (complete with dipping sauces!), next to a vase of white daises and purple chrysanthemum.

Cambodian customs are a mix of animism, Hinduism, Buddhism. The altar incorporated the symbolically important Hindu number of seven. Yary said traditionally the altar holds seven different kinds of food and seven kinds of fruit, what he called “seven times seven.”

Marge Rack, professor of art at Middlesex Community College (MCC), gave a welcoming address, translated by Tooch Van, International Student Advisor at MCC, to the approximately fifteen people attending. She said that this project was “a dream come true,” and it was her vision to build a ceramics community that not only included Lowell but Cambodia as well.

An achar, or master of ceremonies, lit three tall white candles placed on an orange brick and recited a blessing in Pali, the liturgical language of Buddhism.

The two monks chanted a Sanskrit sutra while dipping flowers into pottery bowls of water and sprinkling water over the kiln’s foundation.

At the altar, Yary lit a candle next to the chicken while Proeung poured pinot grigio over the chicken. Holding a bundle of incense sticks, Yary prayed and chanted over the offerings, then placed one burning incense stick each into an apple, a grape, a cherry, and the chicken.

The art department of MCC generously presented Yary and Proeung with a hand truck so they won’t hurt their backs! They will be helped by Samnang Khoeun, an architect and Yari’s former apprentice, and Vanny Hang, a sculptor from Lawence who is a specialist in ornamentation. The artisans collaborate together in their studio in the Western Studios building in Lowell.

Earlier, Celeste Bernardo, the new Superintendent of Lowell National Park, said that “heritage is made strong by the many cultures in our community,” and that the Lowell community helps spread and continue the traditions of the Cambodian people.

Cambodian Kiln Project : kiln blessing

Helping Preserve the Ancient Art of Cambodian Ceramics

Wood fire kiln blessing ceremony