“By 1940, he had bought over the business and renamed it Cheap Seng Pottery,” Weng Lin’s grandson, Vooi Yam, tells FMT. The factory manufactured flowerpots, vases, candleholders, and incense burners.
Vooi Yam’s father Seong Lim, who is Weng Lin’s youngest son, was exposed to the pottery-making business from young.
“After finishing school, my father started working in the family business, and would continue to do so until he was 80,” Vooi Yam shares.
When Weng Lin passed away in the 1970s, Seong Lim and his brothers took over the company. And just like his father, Vooi Yam’s own exposure to the family business began at a young age.
“I worked part-time at the factory after school and during holidays, helping out in areas that were short on staff, and would receive RM3 a day,” he says with a laugh.
His father encouraged him to further his studies so he would be better equipped to work at the business. So, in 1989, Vooi Yam enrolled at the Kuala Lumpur College of Art.
He graduated three years later with a diploma in painting and ceramic design, and joined the company as a designer.
“In the 1970s and 1980s, business was still okay because the cost of materials was lower and we could still cover them,” he recalls.
But dark clouds were looming on the horizon. By the ’90s, they began facing competition from products made in China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, which were cheaper.
“Most of our materials – such as plaster, pigment and glaze – were imported and expensive. Over the years it grew increasingly difficult to continue as our selling price could not cover our costs.
“It was hard to make a profit, and we also faced difficulties finding labour as young people did not want to get involved,” Vooi Yam adds.
In October 2020, Cheap Seng Pottery closed down – more than 80 years after the patriarch bought the business.
Vooi Yam, however, did not give up. “I told my father I would continue in a different way,” he reveals.
Inspiring newer generations
Prior to the factory closure, he had set up his own studio with his wife, Neo Chow Cheng, and registered it in March 2020, just before the first movement control order came into effect.
With this new business, TJF Clay Studio, Vooi Yam now focuses on teaching pottery and making exquisite handcrafted tableware.
“I wanted my journey as a potter to go on but I knew I had to change. So, TJF Clay Studio is a continuation from Cheap Seng Pottery and is a new beginning for me.”
Classes at the studio, located in Taman Bercham Idaman, Ipoh, has drawn participants from as far away as Penang and the Klang Valley. Vooi Yam typically conducts classes on the weekends, with each session having a maximum capacity of six people.
Teaching, he says, allows him to share his experience and pass down his knowledge of pottery. And when he is not teaching, Vooi Yam explores his creative side by creating plates, bowls and teacups “inspired by Ipoh’s beautiful landscape”, with beautiful blues and browns signifying dawn and dusk.
Vooi Yam acknowledges that interest among the younger generation is reducing, but he intends to keep playing his part in sharing the art form.
“It is a traditional craft that goes back thousands of years and should be preserved,” he adds. “I hope young people will join workshops, not just at my studio but anywhere, so that they, too, will fall in love with pottery.”