An inspirational book on the craft, sure to entice some into becoming potters themselves.

"Raised in Clay" is a remarkable portrait of pottery making in the South, one of the oldest and richest craft traditions in America. Focusing on more than thirty potters in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and Kentucky, Nancy Sweezy tells how families preserve and practice the traditional art of pottery making today.
First published in 1984, Sweezy's book documents the last generation of potters to have direct contact with preindustrial pottery traditions. It portrays the personalities of the potters, treating this aspect as carefully as the traditions themselves, and discusses various types of wheels, glazes, and kilns and each potter's specialty pieces. Photographs and line drawings showing potters, their potteries and equipment, examples of finished work, and step-by-step works in progress enhance the text. Sweezy's introductory chapter provides a superb history of southern pottery making. For this edition, she has added a new afterword on recent changes in the potting scene.

This richly illustrated portrait of North Carolina's pottery traditions tells the story of the generations of "turners and burners" whose creations are much admired for their strength and beauty. Perhaps no other state possesses such an active and extensive ceramic heritage, and one that is entirely continuous. This book is an attempt to understand both the past and the present, the now largely vanished world of the folk potter and the continuing achievements of his descendants. It is a tribute that is long overdue.
From the middle of the eighteenth century through the second quarter of the twentieth century, folk potters in North Carolina produced thousands of pieces of earthenware and stoneware -- sturdy, simple, indispensable forms like jars and jugs, milk crocks and butter churns, pitchers and dishes, ring jugs and flowerpots. Their wares were familiar and everyday, not innovative or unusual, because they were shaped through generations of use for specific functions. The utilitarian forms were so commonplace and embedded in daily life that few individuals documented the craft. "Turners and Burners" is the first book to chronicle these pottery traditions, with close attention to distinct regional and temporal patterns and the major families involved. It explores in detail the traditional technologies used, from the foot-powered treadle wheel to the wood-fired groundhog kiln.
Terry Zug became interested in North Carolina pottery in 1969 shortly after moving to Chapel Hill. In 1974 he began documenting the craft and traveled throughout the state recording the reminiscences of potters, former potters, and members of potters' families who recalled the old craft in remarkable detail. He systematically photographed and cataloged old pots, located early shop sites, and carefully recorded the remaining waster dumps of broken shards and decaying equipment. His primary source, however, was the potters themselves. Their tape-recorded interviews provide an insider's view of their world and reveal the powerful underlying logic and autonomy of their craft.

After Glow documents the New Nordic Porcelain Forum, a project which focuses on the Nordic tradition of porcelain production. The focal point is the collaborative work of 13 ceramic artists from the Scandinavian regions, who gathered for a residency in Denmark in 2019 and in 2021 for a two-week stay in various workshops associated with porcelain production in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. This publication not only serves as an exhibition catalogue, it offers insights into the important industrial and design histories of northern Europe, as well as into today's use of porcelain as an artistic medium. In doing so, it is hoped that the production of Nordic contemporary ceramics will advance to a new collaborative practice in order to transform and therefore preserve this important cultural heritage.

For over 25,000 years, humans across the globe have shaped, decorated, and fired clay. Despite great differences in location and time, universal themes appear in the world's ceramic traditions, including religious influences, human and animal representations, and mortuary pottery. In Global Clay: Themes in World Ceramic Traditions, noted pottery scholar John A. Burrison explores the recurring artistic themes that tie humanity together, explaining how and why those themes appear again and again in worldwide ceramic traditions. The book is richly illustrated with over 200 full-color, cross-cultural illustrations of ceramics from prehistory to the present. Providing an introduction to different styles of folk pottery, extensive suggestions for further reading, and reflections on the future of traditional pottery around the world, Global Clay is sure to become a classic for all who love art and pottery and all who are intrigued by the human commonalities revealed through art.

Walter Ostrom has been described as an "innovative traditionalist," a disruptive force shaking up ceramic conventions while simultaneously enriching them. Hired to teach studio and Asian art history at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1969, Ostrom was one of many American artists who moved north to Canada in the fallout from the Vietnam War. Ostrom's work, from his embrace of conceptual art in the 1970s to his current exploration of the vast history, hybridization, and social foundation of ceramics, marks him as a major force in the development of contemporary ceramics. As Ray Cronin writes, Ostrom's works "declare themselves to be art and craft at once, tradition and innovation merged, beauty and function reconciled, thought and action combined. What more could one ask from any work of art?"Accompanying a major retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia opening in May 2020, Good Earth features essays by leading scholars and curators along with full-colour reproductions of over fifty examples of Ostrom's works.

This book examines Greek vase-paintings that depict humorous, burlesque, and irreverent images of Greek mythology and the gods. Many of the images present the gods and heroes as ridiculous and ugly. While the narrative content of some images may appear to be trivial, others address issues that are deeply serious. When placed against the background of the religious beliefs and social frameworks from which they spring, these images allow us to explore questions relating to their meaning in particular communities. Throughout, we see indications that Greek vase-painters developed their own comedic narratives and visual jokes. The images enhance our understanding of Greek society in just the same way as their more sober siblings in serious art. David Walsh is a Visiting Research Scholar in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at The University of Manchester."

This fully illustrated and researched catalogue commemorates an exhibition of over 200 pieces of Chinese and related ceramics collected within the members of the Oriental Ceramic Society of London. The selection spans the complete range from Neolithic to contemporary ceramics, from minor kilns in many different regions to the major kilns working for the court, and from pieces of academic interest to world-famous masterpieces. It privileges unusual and rarely seen artifacts and avoids well known, repetitive designs such as that of the dragon, which is so firmly identified with China that it has become a cliche of Chinese art. It also aims to demonstrate the vast variety of wares and the inventiveness of Asian potters well beyond the classic confines. Text in English and Chinese.

This book provides a detailed analysis of the Mayan pottery from Xkipche in the Puuc area of the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico. During the 7th century, in Puuc area a regional type of Mayan culture emerged, recongazible by characteristic architectural style. So far it was impossible to date the beginnings and ends of the settlements in this area. The site of Xkipche offers clues to the dating, with almost half a million of studied pottery fragments. This is by far the largest prehispanic pottery assemblage from the whole of the northen Yucatan.

Sharing their insights in compelling interviews, 38 of today's Black ceramists demonstrate a diversity of studio practices and ways of using clay, together with more than 250 stunning photos of their work. Especially crucial in light of the times, this book helps disperse the fog of noninclusion. With the goal of giving the artists the recognition long overdue them, donald a clark and Chotsani Elaine Dean begin by grounding us in history and context. The authors take us through time, explaining recent important research from Drayton Hall in South Carolina, for example, and other work that has helped honor the contributions, presence, and experiences of African Americans in ceramic history in America. Bringing us to today, clark and Dean present for each of 38 contemporary ceramic artists an introduction, an interview with the artist, and photos highlighting some of their work. This important and necessary information, with its impact on the medium as a whole, is beautifully and engagingly presented to makers and craft appreciators alike.

This manuscript represents the third and final volume in the publication of the Hellenistic pottery unearthed by the American excavations in the Athenian Agora. The first installment (Agora XXII) was devoted to the moldmade bowls and the second (Agora XXIX) to the remainder of the fine ware. The third presents the plain wares, including household pottery, oil containers, and cooking pottery. In all, about 1400 Hellenistic vessels in these categories have been entered into the excavation record, which are represented here in a catalogue of 847 objects. The study constructs a typology, based on both form and fabric, and a chronology for these ceramics, using the fact that many of the pieces were found in 'closed contexts' like wells. Finally, the author discusses the possible functions of the ceramic shapes found, and uses them to reconstruct some of the domestic and industrial activities of Hellenistic Athenians. While it documents the pottery assemblage of one site, this book will be an essential reference tool for archaeologists around the Mediterranean. This manuscript represents a stunning scholarly accomplishment. detail. This volume will stand as a fitting capstone to a project of long duration, and it will enjoy many, many years as a vital and easy-to-use reference work. Andrea Berlin, University of Minnesota.

Although the treasury of King Croesus held great quantities of gold and silver plate, the Lydians clearly loved fine ceramic wares imported from Greece. This preference was entirely appropriate for the capital of the expansive Lydian Kingdom, which occupied a pivotal position between the city states of the Greeks and the gigantic empire of the Persians. The importation of Greek pottery corresponds to the visits from poets, philosophers, and politicians mentioned by the historian Herodotus.

This collaborative work consists of three generously illustrated sections presenting the ceramic finds excavated at Sardis, but produced in the mainland Greek centers of Corinth, Athens, and Sparta. Judith Snyder Schaeffer analyzes the Corinthian imports, Nancy H. Ramage the Attic, and Crawford H. Greenewalt, Jr., the Lakonian. Their study of this material from the Harvard-Cornell excavations at Sardis offers new evidence of the taste for specific Greek wares and shapes in Anatolia before the time of Alexander the Great.

A feat of great technical achievement, French faience was introduced to Lyon in the second half of the sixteenth century by skilled Italian immigrants: mdash;the French word "faience" deriving from the northern Italian city of Faenza. Over the next two centuries, production spread throughout the provinces of metropolitan France. The fine decoration of French faience draws inspiration from multiple sources--Italian maiolica, Asian porcelain, and even contemporary engravings. The forms of its platters, bowls, plates, and ewers derive mostly from European ceramics and silver. This complex interplay of influences comes together in works of great originality.The Knafel Collection of French faience, the finest in private hands, includes outstanding examples of Nevers, Rouen, Moustiers, Moulins, and Marseilles production from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. The quality of these masterpieces almost obscures the fact that French faience was essentially a provincial art, largely patronized and commissioned by a local aristocracy and made far from the centres of political power in Versailles and Paris. In this stunning new volume, Charlotte Vignon traces the history of French faience, offering detailed discussions of key centers of production. Illustrated with more than seventy examples, this valuable resource testifies to the creativity and beauty of an engagingly innovative tradition.

Maris Boyd Gillette's groundbreaking study tells the story of Jingdezhen, China's porcelain capital, from its origins in 1004 in Song dynasty China to the present day. Gillette explores how Jingdezhen has been affected by state involvement in porcelain production, particularly during the long 20th century. She considers how the Chinese government has consumed, invested in, taxed and managed the local ceramics industry, and the effects of this state intervention on ceramists' lives, their local environment and the nature of the goods they produce. Gillette traces how Jingdezhen experienced the transition from imperial rule to state ownership under communism, the changing fortunes of the ceramics industry in the early 21st century, the decay and decline that accompanied privatisation, and a revival brought about by an entrepreneurial culture focusing on the manufacture of highly-prized 'art porcelain'.

This updated third edition explores new techniques in digital and 3D printing, as well as refreshing older techniques such as mono-printing. Printing has become a common part of the ceramic artist's practice and today there are more possibilities than ever before. From low-tech mono-prints to digital laser decal, it is now possible to employ a range of techniques to print on clay and vitreous surfaces. With the ongoing advancement of new technologies and more developed studio-based transfer processes artists continue to push the boundaries of the medium. In this comprehensive update of his popular Ceramics Handbook title, Paul Scott explains the historical context for contemporary printed ceramics before explaining the principles of core techniques and their application in the studio. He explores photographic processes, as well as the new opportunities presented by digital technology, including digital and 3D printing. Illustrated with brand new images of beautiful works by leading artists working in printed ceramics, Ceramics and Print is a must-read guide for artists and makers interested in this ever-developing field.

Spectators at the sides of narrative vase paintings have long been at the margins of scholarship, but a study of their appearance shows that they provide a model for the ancient viewing experience. They also reflect social and gender roles in archaic Athens. This study explores the phenomenon of spectators through a database built from a census of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, which reveals that the figures flourished in Athenian vase painting during the last two-thirds of the sixth century BCE. Using models developed from psychoanalysis and the theory of the gaze, ritual studies, and gender studies, Stansbury-O'Donnell shows how these 'spectators' emerge as models for social and gender identification in the archaic city, encoding in their gestures and behavior archaic attitudes about gender and status.

Examples of Roman period red-gloss and red-slip pottery (terra sigillata) found during excavations in the Athenian Agora form the focus of this volume. These fine wares, like the other table wares of the first seven centuries A.D. discussed here, were all imported--a very different situation to earlier periods where Athens was known as a great ceramic-making center, and perhaps the result of mass destruction of potters' workshops during the Sullan sack of 86 B.C. While the image of a demolished pottery industry is tragic, the consequent conglomeration of fine-wares from many parts of the Roman empire in one city makes the Athenian Agora a tremendous source of comparanda for archaeologists working all round the Mediterranean. Written by the world's leading expert on Roman pottery, this huge catalogue illustrating and identifying multiple shapes and types of decoration will therefore be an essential reference book.

During the Middle Ages decorative floor tiles were used in abbey churches, royal palaces, parish churches and the homes of wealthy citizens. Tiles were durable and hygienic and added a new decorative element to the interior. Despite their simple tools and kiln equipment, the medieval tile makers proved extremely skilful in the production of different types of tile. They ranged from variously shaped plain tiles, which were assembled into complex mosaic floors, to two-coloured inlaid tiles, and stamped-relief and line-impressed tiles, all decorated with a wealth of different patterns and designs. Many medieval tiles disappeared during nineteenth-century restorations but the designs lived on in the copies made by Victorian tile manufacturers. Throughout Britain, tiles can still be seen 'in situ' on the sites of former abbeys as well as in medieval cathedrals and parish churches, and the British Museum has an extensive and important collection.

Collecting Staffordshire ceramic figures, a particularly English folk art, has expanded from its origins to include much of the English speaking world. This work, in two books, details and illustrates the range and depth of figures made by the potters. Over 2,900 figures are illustrated in the two books, virtually all in the brilliant color which was imperative for the beauty and simplicity of the figures to be fully appreciated. Many of these figures have never before been recorded. A history of the figures, together with sources and relevant bibliographical details, are included, along with a guide to current prices. Victorian Staffordshire Figures 1835-1875, Book Two details Religous and Temperance Figures; Hunters and Huntsmen; Shepherds, Gardeners, Harvesters, and Pastoral Scenes; Other Pursuits, Pastimes, and Occupations; Children with Animals; Dogs; Animals; Houses, Cottages, and Castles; and Sport and Miscellaneous.