Pottery
Pottery Map
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Pottery
Pottery is made from a material called clay body that has been modeled, dried, and fired into a vessel or decorative object. It is usually decorated with a glaze or finish. Clay is a natural product which has decomposed from rock within the earth's crust for millions of years. Decomposition occurs when water containing low concentrations of chemicals erodes the rock and breaks it down into fine-grained minerals that are then deposited into in place as residual or secondary deposits.
Clay bodies are not the same thing as clay. Clay bodies consists of clay mixed with additives that give the clay different properties when worked and fired; thus pottery is not made from raw clay but a mixture of clay and other materials. Three examples are earthenware body, stoneware body and porcelain body.
Clay bodies may be modeled by hand or with a potter's wheel, jogs may be used which is a tool that copies the form of a master model onto a production piece, may be poured into a mold and dried, or cut or stamped into squares or slabs.
Pottery must be fired to a temperature high enough to harden the piece so it will hold water. Liquid glaze may be painted on the surface of the unfired pot or the unfired pot may be dipped in the glaze, which changes chemical composition and fuses to the surface of the fired pot.
Pottery may be decorated in a number of ways, including:
Incising patterns on its surface
Underglaze decoration
In-glaze decoration
On-glaze decoration
Enamel