Understanding Onggi with Teacher Kwak Kyung Tae

At Tao of Clay, we are deeply interested in the moments when tradition becomes lived experience. When technique, history, and the body come together through practice. Onggi, Korea’s centuries old pottery tradition, is one such lineage: grounded in daily life, shaped by rhythm and breath, and carried forward through hands that listen as much as they form.

In this conversation, we sit with a master potter Teacher Kwak Kyung Tae whose relationship with Onggi began not as an academic pursuit, but as a moment of quiet recognition. What follows is a reflection on clay as companion, teaching as transmission, and the embodied knowledge that emerges when tradition is shared across cultures, places, and generations.

 

1. How did you first learn to make Onggi and pottery?

I first encountered Onggi in the spring of 1993 during my university’s annual ceramics wheel-throwing tournament. That morning began with a demonstration by an elder Onggi master. With striking ease and confidence, he stretched, stacked, and rhythmically paddled the clay into a massive, beautifully proportioned vessel. His movements were fluid yet grounded, rooted in a deep understanding of material, tradition and time.

I was completely transfixed. So much so that I nearly missed my time to compete. But in truth, the competition faded in importance. What stayed with me was the profound presence of that vessel and the quiet authority of the hands that shaped it.

That moment marked the beginning of a long journey for me. Onggi was not just a form or technique; it was a way of being in dialogue with the earth, with history, and with the body. It stirred something elemental in me – a respect for raw clay, a fascination with physical process, and a desire to root my practice in something honest and enduring. 

2. For those unfamiliar, can you describe what Onggi are traditionally used for? Are they still used in this way today, or have their functions evolved?

Onggi traditions have origins in the Korean Peninsula dating back to 5000 BCE. Before ceramics, onggi ware was used for all daily life needs ranging from tableware, fermentation vessels, chimneys, storage, distillation, and more. 

Globally, onggi has been popularized by the large fermentation vessels that are vital to Korean cuisine. The onggi technique has gained recognition for its efficient method of building large vessels with speed. 

In the modern age, onggi fermentation has lost its ubiquity. The modern lifestyle has families choosing the more convenient innovation like the refrigerator over maintaining onggi vessels for their kitchen. As demand for onggi has diminished, so have the artisans that produce them. 

 

3. Can you share what you enjoy most about teaching ceramics? How long have you been teaching?

What I enjoy the most is seeing people grow. When I teach Korean traditional pottery techniques and watch students develop their own style from it, that’s when I feel the happiest. 

I first started in 2018 with a small group of five to six students. I took a break during COVID, then started again in 2022, and I’ve been teaching ever since. I travel abroad to teach Korean traditional onggi and wheel-throwing techniques  in different countries—Dubai, Portugal, London, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada.

When I visit a place for the first time, I always feel excited and curious about the students I’ll meet. Many students come from California in the U.S., and I love being able to see returning students as well.

 

4.  Have you ever visited San Diego or California before? If yes, what stands out to you? If not, what are you most looking forward to during your visit?

This is going to be my first time visiting California. I always feel excited and curious about the students I’ll meet. Many students come from California to our classes in Korea, and I look forward to meeting the students again.

 

5. What does it mean to you to share this cultural tradition with a global audience?

For me, sharing tradition is not simply about teaching the past. It is about sharing lived experience. It involves communicating traditional techniques while also offering a space to reinterpret these through a contemporary lens.

In countless demonstrations and classes, people engage not just with words, but with the process itself. Through Korean traditional techniques, they come to recognise their own forms of knowledge, ones they may not have been aware of before. In this way, I see the transmission of Korean traditional culture not as a visual exchange, but as a tactile and direct experience. 

6. How has your understanding of or relationship with clay evolved over the years?

My relationship with clay has shifted over time, but the presence of clay has remained steady. As a child, a creek ran in front of my home and beside it, a patch of soft, white clay. I spent hours using this wild clay to transform my imagination into form. It was quiet, instinctive, and free.

As I grew older, clay became more than a material. It became my profession, my teacher, and a source of discipline and discovery. As it taught me, I slowly built understanding through repetition and attention.

Now, clay is a companion. We’ve developed a mutual trust. It continues to challenge and teach me, but with a sense of familiarity. What began as play has become a lifelong relationship, one that still evolves with each piece I make.

 

7. Can you describe the physical and emotional experience of working on your large vessels?

Forming a large vessel requires all the muscles, nerves, and breath in my body to become one. A rhythmic movement emerges from my body to tell a story. To viewers, my hand movement may appear to be the main focus, but during the making process I breathe in relationship with my tacit knowledge within my body, creating rhythm and encountering it. In other words, my body, breath, and emotions from a relationship together, and through this unity, the vessel is ultimately completed.

 

Onggi Vessels at The Tao of Clay

Onggi reminds us that clay is not inert, it responds, resists, teaches, and remembers. Through breath, repetition, and attention, vessels come into being not only as objects, but as records of presence and relationship.

At Tao of Clay, we honor this way of working: one that values lived knowledge, tactile exchange, and the slow evolution of trust between maker and material. We are grateful to share this voice, this lineage, and this reminder that tradition is not something preserved at a distance but something carried forward through the body, one vessel at a time.

 

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