Pottery and Porcelain
Posted on October 3, 2007 -Author: lotus
Filed Under Pots, Clay, Porcelain, Pottery, History | Leave a Comment
The origins of Chinese pottery and porcelain go back to distant antiquity. And from the masterful excellence of Chinese ceramics, we can deduce the painstaking labor that went into making them.
Tradition
Four objective factors influenced the beginnings and development of Chinese pottery and porcelain:clay, fuel, river systems, and markets. Heavy clay and large quantities of fuel are required for pottery and porcelain making. High shipping costs made pottery production economically impractical in areas without these basic prerequisites. So a locale with plentiful supplies of both clay and lumber as fuel had the best potential for setting up a ceramics kiln.
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Once a large kiln has been set up, it often continues to produce for hundreds of years. The arts of preparing clay, glazing, and firing are often passed down from generation to generation, so each area will tend to develop its own individual glazes, clays, and decorating techniques, resulting in unique styles and designs. From the particular features of a piece, one can usually pinpoint definitively when and where it was made. Beginning with the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), and into the Tang (618-907 A.D.), Sung (960-1279 A.D.), Yuan (1279-1368 A.D.), and Ming (1368-1644 A.D.) dynasties, large quantities of pottery and porcelain were exported from China to Korea, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, the Southeast Asian peninsula, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, the Middle East, the eastern coast of Africa, continental Europe, Great Britain, and the United States. Pottery and porcelain pieces exported during these periods are an excellent source of research materials on the history of China’s communications, trade, and economic relations with other countries. Read more
chinese pottery Clay Porcelain Porcelain Wine Jugs pottery Traditional Style PotteryLisa Hammond
Posted on September 29, 2007 -Author: AMAY
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For the last 28 years I have been making vapour glaze pots. Since setting up Maze Hill Pottery, I have concentrated on producing functional, high temperature soda glaze pots for the preparation, cooking, and serving of food, in the broadest sense of the word.
Raw glazed using slip and a number of firing schedules, the work has a rich pallet of colour and texture.
I have always spent some of my making time producing more individual work, recently after spending 3 months making and exhibiting in Japan, I have spent time developing a range of Shino wares, inspired by my time spent in the Mino area.
Lisa Hammond, Maze Hill Pottery, The Old Ticket Office, Woodlands Park Road, Greenwich, SE10 9XE
Tel: 020 8293 0048 Website: www.mazehillpottery.com
Image: Shino faceted jar 20×14 cm
China Pottery History - Ancient Home of Pottery
Posted on September 25, 2007 -Author: piggle
Filed Under Pottery, Article, History | Leave a Comment
China, a country with one of the most ancient civilizations in the world, has a time-honored history of producing pottery. Pottery wares dating back more than 10,000 years have been discovered at NanZhuangTou in XuShui County, HeBei Province.
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In the history of Chinese cultures, pottery is a unique and important vehicle. Thanks to its solid quality and stable functions, a large number of pottery wares have been well preserved for thousands of years, preserving various types of information concerning production, everyday life, science and technology, and art from ancient times. Ancient pottery is highly prized by archeologists, as through the shapes, patterns and glaze of pottery of different periods, we can define the age of an archaeological site, thus helping us to study the society, economy and cultural level of a certain era.
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In the New Stone Age, about 8,000 years ago, a large number of red, gray, white and painted pottery wares were developed, of which painted pottery has drawn the most attention. Pottery wares produced in the New Stone Age were bold and solid, and the patterns on pottery wares were free and graceful. Painted pottery containers of the YangShao and MaJaiYao cultures commonly found in ShaAnXi, GanSu and Qinghai Provinces include basins, jars, bowls and urns. All of them are rich in the flavor of life.
Chinese Pottery and Porcelain
Posted on September 24, 2007 -Author: Porcelain
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The origins of Chinese pottery and porcelain go back to distant antiquity. And from the masterful excellence of Chinese ceramics, we can deduce the painstaking labor that went into making them. In the National Palace Museum in Taipei, you will find many outstanding examples of nearly translucent eggshell china. Painted on the surfaces of these Ming (1368-1644 A.D.) and Ch’ing (1644-1911 A.D.) period pieces are delicate flowers, grasses, birds, and beasts that make one sigh and wonder how such fine work was ever produced.
Four objective factors influenced the beginnings and development of Chinese pottery and porcelain: clay, fuel, river systems, and markets. Heavy clay and large quantities of fuel are required for pottery and porcelain making. Prohibitively high shipping costs made pottery production economically impractical in areas without these basic prerequisites. So a locale with plentiful supplies of both clay and lumber as fuel had the best potential for setting up a ceramics kiln.
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China ware
Posted on September 19, 2007 -Author: piggle
Filed Under Porcelain, Ceramic Societies, Pottery, History, Ceramic in China | Leave a Comment
China-ware or bone-China or porcelain or Chinese ceramics has developed in the form of a fine art ever since the rule of the dynasties. During the Paleolithic era, which is about 11,000 years ago, a few of the initial types were produced. Chinese Ceramics can be put to a wide range of uses starting from the use in the construction materials as bricks and tiles to hand-made pottery vessels baked in bonfires or kilns to the finely crafted porcelain wares or China sets initially created for the royalty. Porcelain as understood by the Chinese is used to mean a wide variety of ceramics, which have been fired on high heat. Some of these may not be identified as porcelain, as understood by the Western countries. The reason being that they are generally ‘green-fired’ or ‘once-fired’, meaning that the body is baked and at the same time the glaze on the outer surface is also produced. After a single unit is made and a proper finishing is given to it, it goes through the following steps: 1)It is dried. 2)Then the outer surface is glazed. 3)It is again dried. 4)Finally it is fired again to give it a hard finish. In the hot kiln the body and the glaze blend with each other to give a uniform effect. Chinese enameled wares are produced similarly, but the enamels are added at the second stage. Then the pieces are again fired but at low temperatures. Read more
Bone China China ware Chinese ceramics earthenware Paleolithic era Porcelain pottery StonewareChinese Arts - Handicrafts,Stoneware, Earthenware, Pottery
Posted on September 19, 2007 -Author: piggle
Filed Under History, Article, Knowledge, Ceramic in China, Ceramic Communion, Culture&Civilization | 1 Comment
Ceramics are objects shaped from earthen materials and fired in a kiln to make them water-proof and durable to a certain extent. The basic materials for ceramics are mineral-rich clay, containing kaolinite (Al2[Si2O5][OH]4), silica and feldspar. The crystal structure of these minerals allows a plastic forming of the clay, making it possible to create every thinkable shape that does not decay during the firing process. Feldspars are aluminosilicates containing sodium (Na), potassium (K) or calcium (Ca), fluxing agents, that reduce the melting temperatures of the silicates that harden the object. After blending of raw materials according to special recipes, the vessel is formed upon a rotating wheel, if the vessel shall be round. In the kiln, the ready made earthenware objects are gradually heated from room temperature through a hot zone, and back to room temperature to achieve some measure of bonding of the silica particles, consolidation of the object’s shape and reduction in porosity. Refinement of the earthenware can either be reached by vitrification of by glazing. Vitrification can be reached through a change of the silicate’s crystal structure into an amorphous glass structure, and it happens at very high firing temperatures between 1,500 and 1,800°C (2,900 and 3,200°F) that can be lowered by fluxing agents. Glazing is made by dipping the fired object into - or painting it with - a glazing slurry and firing it again at a somewhat lower temperature than the main firing. By the addition of special metallic oxides, the vessels are given colors of a relatively small range.
Earthenware and ceramics were produced by the human race as long as it exists. The oldest examples of Chinese ceramics serve, as in the other parts of the world, to identify the different cultures. Depictings of human beings especially came up during the Warring States period 戰國 and were very popular under the Qin 秦 and Han æ¼¢ dynasties that created whole armies of clay statues. Tomb offering clay figurines serve as important archeological objects to reproduce architecture and clothing of ancient China. From the Jin Dynasty 晉 on, vessels and objects are glazed, mostly with yellow, green and brown colors (produced by ferrous oxides, ferric oxides, lead and vegetable charcoal combined with soda-lime). Typical for Tang Dynasty å” ceramics are the three colors (sancai 三彩) white of the vessel itself, therfore called whiteware, dark green and brownish yellow. Song Dynasty 宋 ceramics are only one-colored, either with a soft green or glazed white. But during this period, porcelain develops as an important ceramic product, and the taste of colors also changes to the worldwide known typical blue-white ceramic chinaware, which fully developed during the Yuan Dynasty å…ƒ. China Kitchen Cabinets
Clay was not only the raw material for vessels either daily use vessels or art objects, but also the ground material for statues of deities in Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist temples. Read more
Ryoji Koie - Ceramic Rebel - Article by Janet Mansfield
Posted on September 17, 2007 -Author: Ceramic POTTER
Filed Under Exhibition, Article, Artists & Potters | Leave a Comment
Followers of the ceramics of the japanese artist Ryoji Koie could be excused for wondering what Koie will turn his mind to next. When I first met Koie in the 1970s he was making pots covered in slip and firing them with wood that had been dredged from the harbour near Tokoname, Koie’s home town. These pots had flashes of red and brown and the sheen one associates with salt-glaze.
China Kitchen Cabinets
Since then Koie has been involved working in many styles. Significant are his works of social commentary that refer to Hiroshima, to Nagasaki, to Chernobyl. These works grace many museum collections and have serious and passionate impact for those who see them and are aware of their significance. Koie is also known for his work with unfired clay, bringing raw earth into the gallery for a series of happenings and events, radical ones of which, I have heard, caused the traditional ceramic establishment to raise their eyebrows. When I visited him in the 1980s at his studio in Gifu, he was cutting stone boulders in half, firing one half and then realigning both sections together before writing messages or signatures or dates across the cut sections. But the workshop was full of pots, woodfired, oribe green glazed and true fine examples of the potter’s art. And it is the pots I believe to be the inspiration that has continued to fascinate Koie’s followers and, possibly, the artist himself. It is in the pots that Koie shows his rebellious character. While these pots reflect all the pleasure and value we associate with the Japanese sense of beauty, we find in them a break with tradition. With these works he is placed between the pottery tradition and the contemporary art of the avant-garde. The beauty is there without doubt but we are also struck by the casual ease of the potter and his spirited approach.
When Ryoji Koie accepted my invitation to take part in ClaySculpt Gulgong 1995, I was not sure what to expect. Arriving early he bought several items of old machinery, such as sewing machines, from the local townsfolk. Koie has made a number of works using fired metal, particularly for his Testament series which have appeared throughout his career.
A car accident limited his output during the Gulgong event to a number of teabowls made with one hand – the other was broken and confined in a sling. However his interaction with the other invited masters as well as the participants and his knowledge of woodfiring added considerably to the event, and his ebullient and compassionate personality led to many stories.
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Arts and crafts tiles
Posted on September 1, 2007 -Author: fish
Filed Under Article, Artists & Potters | Leave a Comment
Pottery was one of the most prolific branches of the decorative arts during the arts and crafts period. It was produced both by factories employing many potters and decorators and by individuals working on a very small scale. A great deal of experimentation resulted in a number of innovative glazing and firing techniques. These were then applied to reinterpretations of historical motifs and new forms of decoration to produce some of the most interesting products of the time. As described by a writer for House Beautiful in 1899: “In the manufacture of pottery, oftener perhaps than in other crafts, one meets with this renascent spirit; possibly because its subtle chemistry offers an opportunity to the scientist as well as the artist. It is a fascinating and absorbing art, claiming the utmost devotion, but lavishly rewarding the man who can discover its secrets.”
One such man was Ernest Allan Batchelder, who founded the Batchelder Tile Company in Pasadena, California, in 1909. He was no stranger to the tenets of the arts and crafts movement as he had studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Birmingham, England; taught at the Harvard Summer School of Design; established the Handicraft Guild of Minneapolis; and directed the arts and crafts department at Throop Polytechnic Institute (now the California Institute of Technology) in Pasadena. He published Principles of Design in 1904 and his articles for The Craftsman were compiled in a book entitled Design in Theory and Practice in 1910.
Arts Batchelders products crafts tiles decorative tiles potteryCeramic Artist & Potter Directory:A - G
Posted on August 31, 2007 -Author: fish
Filed Under Statement, Artists & Potters | Leave a Comment
 Ceramic Artist & Potter Directory
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Ray Aldridge (Aldridge Porcelain and Stoneware Location: Walton Beach, Florida Primary Focus: Table ware, Porcelain Primary Firing: High-Fire) Handmade traditional porcelain pottery for kitchen and table, decorated with cats, using layered slips and glazes for rich functional surfaces. pbwriter@fwb.gulf.net
Pete Anderson ( PBA Pottery Location: St. Michael, MN USA Concentration: Pottery Art Work Description: Bowls, Functional Primary Techniques Used: Wheel Thrown Primary Clays Used: Dark Stoneware Primary Firing Methods: High-fire Reduction ) Site Description: Stoneware pottery from Minnesota-based potter, Pete Anderson. Functional and Decorative vessels with Letterpress type surface decoration.
Ceramic Artist & Potter Ceramic Creations Ceramic School and Studio Directory pottery
What I’ve been up to
Posted on August 28, 2007 -Author: Ceramic POTTER
Filed Under Design, Artists & Potters | 2 Comments
I’ve been busily working away in my studio lately - and I thought I’d share a little. Below are some small teapots that I just fired last week. I usually make larger teapots, but the one-person teapot has won my heart over!
When I’m not making pots, I’ve been working on my blog. In addition to writing posts this week, I’ve discovered Google Analytics and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it.
A little sampling of the information that I’ve gotten from it this week…
Visitors of Pottery Blog are from:
US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, France, India, Romania, Japan, Switzerland, South Africa, Taiwan, Germany, Denmark, Philippines, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Norway, Poland, New Zealand, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Singapore, Estonia, Iran, Lithuania, Ireland, Sri Lanka, Finland, Indonesia, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal
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