On October 18, 1915 (the tenth day of the ninth lunar month in the year Yimao), Gu Jingzhou was born into an ordinary farming family in Shangzhen Village, Chuanfu, Yixing. Shangzhen Village is located on the north side of Dingshu Town. Due to its long history of pottery making and the emergence of many masters, and because "every family kneaded clay and every household made pottery," it was renamed Zisha Village in the early 1990s. Historical pottery masters such as Chen Mingyuan, Shao Daxiang, and Cheng Shouzhen all came from this village. The Ming Dynasty work *Shao Yeshan Shichao* includes the seven-character regulated verse "Shangzhen: Presented to Wu Akun": "Beyond the village a clear stream, above the stream a village, at the foot of Eryang Mountain an old wooden gate. Whose porcelain commands high prices today? The renowned master everyone praises is Wu Akun." The Wu Akun mentioned in the poem was a folk pottery master from Shangzhen Village during the Daoguang and Xianfeng reigns. Gu Jingzhou, originally named Jinzhou, also known as Jingzhou, with the courtesy names Shouping, Manxiao, and Huxiao, was a Master of Arts and Crafts, a council member of the Jiangsu Province Arts and Crafts Society, and an honorary council member of the Jiangsu Province Ceramics Society. He served as a standing committee member of the Yixing Municipal Political Consultative Conference and honorary director of the Zisha Research Institute at the Yixing Zisha Craft Factory. In the autumn of 1948, he changed his name to Jingzhou, expressing his wish to be a small boat in the sea of art. He once explained it this way: > A boat in the sea of art means letting one's fate struggle along with that boat in the sea of art, never ceasing, forging ahead courageously. Every drop and bit enters the scene, a small boat in the vast sea of art. Due to family circumstances and changes in the social environment, Gu Jingzhou's life experiences were inseparably connected with Zisha teapots, bound together as one. Through his diligence and effort, he rode the waves in the vast sea of sand, sailing forward with unfurled sails. --- [1] Xu Xiudang and Shan Gu, *Zisha Master Gu Jingzhou* (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Publishing House, April 2013 edition), p. 60.