Making your own glazes is a fascinating and rewarding process, even more so when making them from collected ingredients. With little equipment and following a few basic principles, it is possible to harvest glaze ingredients from your local environment, such as clay, subsoil, plants and seashells, to achieve beautiful results in the kiln.

Whether you wish to make an entire glaze using collected materials, or just want to use them as additions to existing base recipes, Miranda Forrest explains how to source and prepare natural ingredients, from degraded rocks to seaweed, as well as giving step-by-step instructions for mixing a glaze, testing samples, and finally applying glazes and firing your work. Contributions from contemporary ceramicists who use natural glaze ingredients give a detailed insight into their working methods and intriguing results.

Encouraging experimentation and a creative approach, Natural Glazes is a vital resource for anyone wishing to work in a more natural, sustainable way to develop their unique glaze effects.

This is the first publication that narrates the significant contributions of Greek women in the various genres of the arts in a historical perspective from antiquity to contemporary Greece. It discusses Greek women in the disciplines of music, the visual arts, poetry and literature, film and theatre, and history. The historical roles of Greek women in music are examined including the first woman composer with preserved music that is a Byzantine-Greek. Readers will discover that it was a Greek woman philosopher who influenced the formation of Socrates' thinking and that the Iliad and Odyssey were actually written by a Hellenic woman but were later appropriated by Homer. Classic and contemporary Greek female writers are in the foreground as well as the modern art music and popular music by Greek women composers. The roles of Greek women in drama are examined and the significant works of contemporary Greek women artists are recognized.

For centuries handcrafted tile has been a predominant decorative surface in tropical climes from Middle East through the Gulf of Mexico to California. California tile makers excelled in their craft during the first half of the twentieth century, producing richly patterned designs for building facades, interiors, garden ornamentation, furniture, and even serving pieces. "Old California" art tile is rich in tradition and innovation. Over 1700 color images in two volumes, comprise this comprehensive collection, with essays on early California tile companies. Arranged alphabetically by company, this volume includes hundreds of tiles from: Hispano-Moresque, Kraftile, Helen Greenleaf Lane, L.A. Pressed Brick, Malibu, Markoff, Muresque, Pacific, Pomona, Poxon, Rhead, S & S, Taylor, Tropico, Tudor, Walrich, West Coast, Woolenius, and tile furnishings and crafts from Cellini-Craft, Hillside Pottery, and Monterey Furniture. A companion volume covers potteries from Acme to Handcraft. Both volumes are enriched by rarely seen archival photographs including historical site installations and have useful guides to tile terminology and techniques. This landmark publication, designed to broaden appreciation of this colorful and varied aspect of American decorative arts, will serve to inspire and guide architects, designers, collectors, and historians alike

Drawing on ceramics in the collection of the Asian Art Museum, this book provides an introduction to the ceramic art of Persia, one of the world's greatest and most influential artistic traditions. Objects discussed range from the fourth millennium BCE through the 1800s. Forty-eight exceptional works are discussed in detail and placed in their cultural and historical contexts.

Creativity is an integral part of human history, yet most studies focus on the modern era, leaving unresolved questions about the formative role that creativity has played in the past. This book explores the fundamental nature of creativity in the European Bronze Age. Considering developments in crafts that we take for granted today, such as pottery, textiles, and metalwork, the volume compares and contrasts various aspects of their development, from the construction of the materials themselves, through the production processes, to the design and effects deployed in finished objects. It explores how creativity is closely related to changes in material culture, how it directs responses to the new and unfamiliar, and how it has resulted in changes to familiar things and practices. Written by an international team of scholars, the case studies in this volume consider wider issues and provide detailed insights into creative solutions found in specific objects.

The late nineteenth-century Biloxi potter, George Ohr, was considered an eccentric in his time but has emerged as a major figure in American art since the discovery of thousands of examples of his work in the 1960s. Currently, Ohr is celebrated as a solitary genius who foreshadowed modern art movements. While an intriguing narrative, this view offers a narrow understanding of the man and his work that has hindered serious consideration. Ellen J. Lippert, in her expansive study of Ohr and his Gilded Age context, counters this fable. The tumultuous historical moment that Ohr inhabited was a formative force in his life and work. Using primary documentation, Lippert identifies specific cultural changes that had the most impact on Ohr. Developments in visual display and the altered role of artists, the southerner redefined in the wake of the Civil War, interest in handicraft as an alternative to rampant mass production, emerging tenets of social thought seeking to remedy worker exploitation, and new assessments of morals and beauty as a result of collapsed ideals all played into the positioning Ohr purposefully designed for himself. The second part of Lippert's study applies these observations to Ohr's body of work, interpreting his stylistic originality to be expressions of the contradictions and oppositions particular to late nineteenth-century America. Ohr threw his inspiration into being both the sophisticate and the ""rube,"" the commercial huckster and the selfless artist, the socialist and the individualist, the ""old-fashioned"" craftsman and the ""artist-genius."" He created art pottery as both a salable commodity and a priceless creation. His work could be ugly and deformed (or even obscene) and beautiful. Lippert reveals that far from isolated, Ohr and his creations were very much products of his inspired engagement with the late nineteenth century.

By the time of his death in 1904, critics, arts reformers, and government officials were near universal in their praise of Art Nouveau designer Emile Galle (1846-1904), whose works they described as the essence of French design. Many even went so far as to argue that the artist's creations could reinvigorate France's fading arts industries and help restore its economic prosperity by defining a modern style to represent the nation. For fin-de-siecle viewers, Galle's works constituted powerful reflections on the idea of national belonging, modernity, and the role of the arts in political engagement. While existing scholarship has largely focused on the artist's innovative technical processes, a close analysis of Galle's works brings to light the surprisingly complex ways in which his fragile creations were imbricated in the political turmoil that characterized fin-de-siecle France. Examining Galle's works inspired by Japanese art, his patriotically inflected designs for the Universal Exposition of 1889, his artistic manifesto in support of Dreyfus created in 1900, and finally, his late works that explore the concept of evolution, this book reveals how Galle returns again and again to the question of national identity as the central issue in his work.

Ceramics and Modernity in Japan offers a set of critical perspectives on the creation, patronage, circulation, and preservation of ceramics during Japan's most dramatic period of modernization, the 1860s to 1960s. As in other parts of the world, ceramics in modern Japan developed along the three ontological trajectories of art, craft, and design. Yet, it is widely believed that no other modern nation was engaged with ceramics as much as Japan-a "potter's paradise"-in terms of creation, exhibition, and discourse. This book explores how Japanese ceramics came to achieve such a status and why they were such significant forms of cultural production. Its medium-specific focus encourages examination of issues regarding materials and practices unique to ceramics, including their distinct role throughout Japanese cultural history. Going beyond descriptive historical treatments of ceramics as the products of individuals or particular styles, the closely intertwined chapters also probe the relationship between ceramics and modernity, including the ways in which ceramics in Japan were related to their counterparts in Asia and Europe. Featuring contributions by leading international specialists, this book will be useful to students and scholars of art history, design, and Japanese studies.

A long-overdue advancement in ceramic studies, this volume sheds new light on the adoption and dispersal of pottery by non-agricultural societies of prehistoric Eurasia. Major contributions from Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia make this a truly international work that brings together different theories and material for the first time. Researchers and scholars studying the origins and dispersal of pottery, the prehistoric peoples or Eurasia, and flow of ancient technologies will all benefit from this book.

This specialized portion of the fifth volume of The Glass Industry in Sandwich features four complete chapters on cut, engraved, and etched glass; an assortment of household and commercial ware; bottles; and a supplement to the seven previously published guides.

The blue and white porcelain exported by China in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is an important category of artifacts and antiques, a fashion-sensitive commodity that was affected by the ebbs and flows of style and consumer demand. In this copiously illustrated, comprehensive guide to Chinese export porcelain, Andrew Madsen offers both a broad overview and detailed identification and context information for the most common styles and motifs. His focus on the determination of manufacture dates, which are based primarily on data collected from armorial decorated export wares, porcelain cargoes from dated shipwrecks, and tightly dated archaeological contexts, will allow students, scholars, and collectors to refine associations with Chinese export porcelain, revealing the untapped quantity of information that mass-produced Chinese export porcelain has to offer.

Paperweight collectors are usually familiar with the histories and products of the French manufacturers Clichy, Baccarat, and Saint Louis, but many know little about English makers from early times to the present day. This book, dedicated solely to the English paperweight makers and containing paperweight examples from the early nineteenth century to 1980, will fill that gap. Gathered together for the first time in one book are the world's largest collections of Bacchus paperweights, as well as many previously unknown and never before photographed paperweights from English glasshouses, all rivaling the best from the French makers. By comparing canes, colors, and styles with one of the hundreds of examples shown in this book, collectors should now be able to identify their own previously unknown weights, and the fake "1848" dated paperweights and inkwells can now be attributed to the right factories and time periods. With over 400 beautiful color photographs, detailed, fascinating descriptions of the weights, and a value guide, this book is a must for paperweight enthusiasts and collectors everywhere.

We all use ceramics on a daily basis without thinking much about it, except when it comes to a favourite mug or cup, for instance. Why is it a favourite? Is it that it holds just the right amount of tea or coffee? Is it that it sits comfortably in the hand with an ample handle that allows you to hold it safely? Is it the clay the cup is made from - a fine porcelain or robust stoneware? Is it the rustic shape or refined, delicate, traditional or contemporary design? Maybe you just like the pattern on the outside! Whatever the reason, someone will have been thinking about the ergonomics of the cup when they designed and made it and all the other ceramic items that you use, to ensure they work perfectly and give you pleasure to handle and serve your food and drink in. This book is a visual feast of ideas and advice to guide the maker through the process of designing and making successful functional ceramics that are practical and appealing in equal measure. It adopts a low-tech approach that is understandable and accessible for all and begins with the basic questions you will need to address before you begin. Each element of the process will be carefully considered, from deciding the function of the item to working out proportions and making basic drawings, to choosing the right clay, tools, and making method, and finally glazing and firing, including safety issues and the essential topic of suitability for food. Each chapter begins by presenting a varied range of basic shapes, be they thrown or hand built. The next section demonstrates a wide selection of handles, rims, feet, lids, knobs, spouts, lips, and other details that can be mixed and matched to form unique designs with personality and functionality. Working the whole process out in advance can reap tremendous rewards, ensuring the maker gets it right first time but also allowing the process to be repeated with minimum effort. From idea to finished item, this book will be the essential guide to all the techniques required to make functional ceramics that really work and give lasting pleasure to use.

A long-overdue advancement in ceramic studies, this volume sheds new light on the adoption and dispersal of pottery by non-agricultural societies of prehistoric Eurasia. Major contributions from Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia make this a truly international work that brings together different theories and material for the first time. Researchers and scholars studying the origins and dispersal of pottery, the prehistoric peoples or Eurasia, and flow of ancient technologies will all benefit from this book.

Prized for their elegance, beauty, and artistry, glass bells are found all over the world and are among those most favored by bell collectors. With over 480 color photos, this stunning book showcases more than 850 glass bells produced primarily during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America, England, France, Italy, and Bohemia, among others. Included are cut glass bells, engraved bells, blown and pressed glass bells, and a special chapter on the highly desirable wedding bells. Each bell is identified by its type, date made, country of origin, and producer if known, along with a general description of size, color, decoration or pattern, and current value. Background information on the manufacturers is provided as well, including helpful hints on attributing bells to different companies by studying features such as handle design and clapper attachment. Based on more than thirty years experience by the author in collecting and researching glass bells, this book will be thoroughly enjoyed by everyone who appreciates bells, glass, and the decorative arts.

Application of heat to clay transforms it into a ceramic, and thus the history and technical features of structures supplying that heat - kilns - are of considerable importance. The 14 chapters in this volume discuss ancient and historic kilns from the viewpoint of their excavation, their operational principles, and their contributions to an understanding of ceramic production within ancient economies.

Few materials have experienced a similar revaluation in contemporary art as clay has in the past few years. This timely publication accompanies a large-scale exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, exploring how contemporary artists are using clay and ceramics in inventive and surprising ways, and pushing the boundaries of the medium. Featuring the work of over 20 international artists-from Grayson Perry to Woody De Othello-an introductory essay by curator Cliff Lauson, a text on the history of fine art and ceramics by writer and critic Amy Sherlock, and a round table discussion with artists from the exhibition, this catalogue is a meaningful contribution to the ongoing conversation about the relationship between art and craft.

In the collectibles world, this durable antique art form is a perfect example of the old "forest for the trees" maxim. Despite their bold designs and colors, only recently have collectors caught on to the value of these antiques of Americana. And the hunt is on. Once posted in every corner of the nation, this durable art form has yet to shed its luster. At the turn of the century, porcelain enamel signs became a standard form of advertising, and they maintained their dominance until the 1970s. Taken down and tucked away, these signs are starting to re-emerge, more valuable than ever. As you page through hundreds of rich color photographs of the signs, learn everything, from how they were made to who was making them, and how many hundreds of dollars they're worth today.

Clay body additions can introduce remarkable new forms and textures in ceramic work. With an emphasis on creativity and experimentation, ceramicist Kathleen Standen reveals a range of possible effects, and profiles the extraordinary work of contemporary makers using additions in their practice. Beginning with an introduction to collecting local clay and making your own clay bodies, the book moves on to cover the array of additions being used by artists today, from hard materials like stones, glass and rust, to combustible matter and fibre, metals including wire and mesh, and colour in various forms. The book is lavishly illustrated throughout with both unique making methods and the beautiful finished works of ceramic artists from around the world. Additions to Clay Bodies is an inspiring introduction to the art of using additions and an essential companion for any artist wishing to expand their practice.

Create your own magical artefacts with this official craft book of projects from the Harry Potter films! From your very own Hogwarts acceptance letter to a golden snitch and a pop-up Goblet of Fire, this official book of craft projects from the Harry Potter films covers a whole range of magical artefacts that fans know and love. With five levels of difficult rating, and detailed instructions and step-by-step photographs for each project, you will soon be able to create an elder wand, a crystal ball, a time-turner and more! Organised into chapters, the book covers the journey to Hogwarts, recognisable books and potions from the classroom, magical objects from sports clubs and competitions, and of course, the dangerous restricted section of the library! This it the perfect book for Harry Potter fans looking to immerse themselves in the Wizarding World.

Barrie Skelcher explains the nature of uranium-colored glass, or Vaseline glass, and attributes makers to many of the examples he presents. Over 400 items shown in the color photographs are from British, American, and European glasshouses, of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The manufacturers are identified along with their uranium bearing products, and a section on special interest pieces is a bonus. What strikes the observer right away are the intense colors of the glass in predominantly green, yellow, and pink hues. They comprise all sorts of useful and collectible tablewares, from condiment containers and candlesticks to bowls and flower vases. This fascinating study illuminates the subject and will be cherished by all future investigators and collectors of vaseline glass. Value ranges are included in the captions.

Ceramics and Modernity in Japan offers a set of critical perspectives on the creation, patronage, circulation, and preservation of ceramics during Japan's most dramatic period of modernization, the 1860s to 1960s. As in other parts of the world, ceramics in modern Japan developed along the three ontological trajectories of art, craft, and design. Yet, it is widely believed that no other modern nation was engaged with ceramics as much as Japan-a "potter's paradise"-in terms of creation, exhibition, and discourse. This book explores how Japanese ceramics came to achieve such a status and why they were such significant forms of cultural production. Its medium-specific focus encourages examination of issues regarding materials and practices unique to ceramics, including their distinct role throughout Japanese cultural history. Going beyond descriptive historical treatments of ceramics as the products of individuals or particular styles, the closely intertwined chapters also probe the relationship between ceramics and modernity, including the ways in which ceramics in Japan were related to their counterparts in Asia and Europe. Featuring contributions by leading international specialists, this book will be useful to students and scholars of art history, design, and Japanese studies.

Explore the human form in depth, from concept sketches and armatures to detailed instructions for constructing legs, torso, arms, hands, and head from clay. In Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay, renowned sculptor and instructorCristina Cordova teaches everything you need to know to replicate the full human figure using clay. Start by developing meaningful sketches and reference points. Then learn how to make and use an armature to create hollow forms that are safe to fire in a kiln. Using patterns and slabs, you can move on to develop a full human form, head to toe. Work along with the author to create a form about two-feet tall, or choose your own size: the patterns and instructions can work in a variety of scales. Photographic demonstrations and diagrams cover the construction and articulation of feet and legs, the hip area and upper torso, arms, hands, neck, and head. Cristina includes supplementary tips and insights throughout to support the sculpting process and enhance naturalism. You'll also find a brief section on general anatomical concepts and modeling strategies to facilitate accuracy and expression as all the components come together. Whether you are a clay artist with limited experience in figurative sculpture or a figurative sculptor outside the world of ceramics looking for a straightforward fabrication strategy to create permanent compositions from clay, Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay will expertly guide your way.