Ceramics

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This subfield focuses on pottery and ceramic art, including techniques such as wheel-throwing, hand-building, and glazing.

Types of Ceramics: Introduction to the different types of ceramics and their properties, including earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, and others.
Clay and Raw Materials: Overview of the different types of clay and raw materials used in ceramics, including their properties and how to prepare and process them.
Handbuilding Techniques: Exploration of the handbuilding techniques used in ceramics, such as pinch, coil, and slab methods.
Wheel Throwing Techniques: Introduction to the techniques used in wheel throwing, including centering, shaping, and trimming.
Glazes and Surface Decoration: Overview of the various types of glazes and surface decoration techniques, including underglazing, overglazing, and other methods used to give ceramics their final appearance.
Firing Methods and Kiln Operation: Explanation of different firing methods like electric, gas, and wood, their effects on the clay, and basic understanding of how to operate a kiln.
History and Culture of Ceramics: Exploration of the historical and cultural significance of ceramics, including the role of ceramics in various societies and how it has evolved over time.
Studio Safety and Maintenance: Overview of the safety protocols and standard maintenance practices commonly used in ceramics studios, including issues like ventilation, tools safety, and clean-up.
- "Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay."
- "It may take varied forms, including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture."
- "While some ceramics are considered fine art, such as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects."
- "Ceramic art can be created by one person or by a group, in a pottery or a ceramic factory with a group designing and manufacturing the artware."
- "In Britain and the United States, modern ceramics as an art took its inspiration in the early twentieth century from the Arts and Crafts movement."
- "Such crafts emphasized traditional non-industrial production techniques, faithfulness to the material, the skills of the individual maker, attention to utility, and an absence of excessive decoration that was typical to the Victorian era."
- "The word 'ceramics' comes from the Greek keramikos (κεραμεικός), meaning 'pottery', which in turn comes from keramos (κέραμος) meaning 'potter's clay'."
- "Most traditional ceramic products were made from clay (or clay mixed with other materials), shaped and subjected to heat."
- "In modern ceramic engineering usage, ceramics is the art and science of making objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials by the action of heat. It excludes glass and mosaic made from glass tesserae."
- "There is a long history of ceramic art in almost all developed cultures, and often ceramic objects are all the artistic evidence left from vanished cultures."
- "Cultures especially noted for ceramics include the Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Persian, Mayan, Japanese, and Korean cultures."
- "Elements of ceramic art, upon which different degrees of emphasis have been placed at different times, are the shape of the object, its decoration by painting, carving and other methods, and the glazing found on most ceramics."