What Do You Call A Ceramic Artist?

Definition Of A Ceramic Artist

A ceramic artist is a person who creates ceramic items or works of art. A ceramist is another term for a ceramic artist. Ceramicist, sculptor, potter, or simply artist are all terms used to characterize someone who works with clay. Ceramics are clay materials that, when fired, change their properties permanently. What do you call yourself, an artist, potter, or ceramist?

A “potter” is a term used in English to describe someone who produces pottery. “A pottery” is the location where it’s done. Poterie is an old French word that means “potter.” “Pots” is a term that refers to any clay vessel.

Clay products created on a potter’s wheel (wheel throwing) are referred to as pottery. These are vases or dinnerware. Unless they are dinnerware or vases, anything produced with clay in slabs or free form is referred to as ceramics or art. People that accomplish this are commonly referred to as artists.

Ceramics are created by pouring clay into a pre-made mold, firing it, and then painting it. A ceramicist is an artist who works in this medium. Ceramics are materials that, when fired, change their properties permanently (permanently changed).

What Do You Call A Person Working With Ceramics?

Every individual artisan dealing with clay is referred to as a potter.

1. Ceramic Engineers

People who work with the chemistry and physics of ceramic materials are known as ceramic engineers.

2. Potter

This is the individual who creates usable pots.

3. Potter In Production

An individual who creates a lot of useful pots for a living. Production potters specialize in producing huge numbers of ceramic goods such as plates, platters, dishes, and bowls. Production potters, in my opinion, are a very boring job because they can sit for an entire day with a hundred pounds of clay and throw the same form over and over again.

More boring work, in my opinion. Throwing off the mound is a method used by many production potters because it saves time centering the clay and sliding bats on and off the wheel head.

4. Ceramic Artist

What-Do-You-Call-A-Ceramic-Artist-Artabys-2

Artists who deal with clay are known as ceramicists or ceramic artists. Not as boring as a production potter.

5. Clay Artist

Clay artists are similar to ceramic artists, but they do not have to fire their work. They are employed as a professional ceramic designer. Now let’s talk about more exciting work. Clay artists and studio potters are more focused on producing shapes that are distinctive and beautiful. These “art” items may retain complete functioning or evolve into more sculptural forms. Many of these are “one-off” works, which means they are unique.

What Do You Call A Person Working With Ceramics - Illustration - Artabys — Illustration

Ceramic Art Or Ceramic Science?

Because there are chemical changes involved in the entire process, working with clay is considered a science. Ceramics, like other fields of science, has a name for it. That is why someone who makes, fires, and glazes their work is referred to as a Ceramicist, much as a Physicist, psychologist, or botanist. Ceramics is a subject that can lead to a Ph.D.

Is A Gardner Also A Potter?

Now, if you are just blindly analyzing the word in any context. Then I can think of many other examples and definitions of a Potter. For example, a potter is also someone who grows plants in pots; however, this is typically referred to as a “gardener,” “horticulturalists,” or “horticulturist.”

Ceramic Artist Summary

Ceramists work with clay at any step in the process, from forming to decorating and firing. It applies to both handcrafted and industrially produced products, and each step in the process has a variety of approaches.

Ceramic Firing Techniques – Firing is the process of creating ceramics that can withstand a great deal of pressure. The firing occurs in an oxygen-rich environment. When it comes to firing pottery (firing process), there are two basic approaches. The two procedures are kiln firing and open firing. Firing is a critical stage in the ceramic process. It’s when clay goes from being clay to being useful ceramic.

A potter is a person who creates handcrafted items, and the profession is called pottery. The two names are derived from the word pot. Ceramics are clay materials that, when fired, change their properties permanently. A ceramic artist is a person who creates ceramic items or works of art.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”
Edgar Degas

Development Of Pottery Over The Centuries

Before 14th Century Years Ago

Recent excavations in Angkor Borei (in southern Cambodia) have uncovered a vast amount of pottery, some of which are likely ancient. The majority of the pottery, on the other hand, is pre-Angkorian and consists mostly of pinkish terracotta pots that were either hand-made or thrown on a wheel before being painted with etched designs.

Glazed ceramics first occur in the archaeological record around the end of the 9th century, when green-glazed pot fragments were discovered in the Roluos temple complex in the Angkor area. Brown glazes became popular in the early eleventh century, and brown-glazed objects have been discovered in abundance at Khmer sites in northeast Thailand. From the 11th through the 13th centuries, animal shapes were a popular way to decorate ceramics.

Archaeological investigations in the Angkor region have revealed that as the Angkor period progressed, indigenous pottery manufacturing dropped while Chinese ceramic imports skyrocketed.

By the 9th century, stoneware had become a popular skill in Islamic ceramics, with production spanning Iraq and Syria. Raqqa, Syria, manufactured pottery in the 8th century. Fustat (near contemporary Cairo) from 975 to 1075, Damascus from 1100 to roughly 1600, and Tabriz from 1470 to 1550 were other locations for inventive ceramics in the Islamic world.
15th Century

The albarello jar, a sort of maiolica earthenware jar initially meant to carry apothecaries’ ointments and dry medications, was created in the Islamic Middle East for the first time. Hispano-Moresque traders brought it to Italy, and the first Italian copies were made in Florence in the 15th century.

16th Century

The finding of glazed bricks in the Elamite Temple at Chogha Zanbil, dating to the 13th century BCE, is the oldest evidence of glazed brick. Low reliefs were created in Ancient Mesopotamia using glazed and colored bricks, the most renowned of which being the Ishtar Gate of Babylon (c. 575 BCE), which is now partially restored in Berlin with pieces elsewhere. Mesopotamian artisans were brought in to work on the Persian Empire’s palaces, such as Persepolis.

Colored and frequently painted glazed bricks or tiles were an essential feature in Persian architecture during the Islamic conquest of Persia, and from there extended throughout much of the Islamic world, especially the znik pottery of Turkey under the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries.

None were successful until the Meissen workshop in Dresden developed a hard-paste porcelain formula in 1710. Porcelain manufactures sprung created in Nymphenburg, Bavaria (1754), Capodimonte, Naples (1743), and many other cities within a few years, frequently supported by a local king.

Japan bought a lot of porcelain from China and a little from Korea from the 11th through the 16th centuries.

Iznik pottery, produced in western Anatolia, is a type of elaborately ornamented ceramics popular during the Ottoman sultans’ reign in the late 16th century. Originally, Iznik vases were meant to look like Chinese porcelain, which was highly esteemed. Demand for Iznik products soared during Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–66). Following the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman sultans began a construction program that utilized vast numbers of Iznik tiles.

There are 20,000 tiles at the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul (constructed 1609–16), and tiles were utilized extensively in the Topkapi Palace (commenced 1459). Tiles dominated the production of the Iznik potteries as a result of this demand.

Small amounts of valuable Chinese porcelain were transported into Europe until the 16th century. From the 16th century onwards, attempts were made in Europe to mimic it, including soft-paste and Florence’s Medici porcelain. In 1712, the French Jesuit father Francois Xavier d’Entrecolles exposed many of the intricate Chinese porcelain production secrets around Europe, which were shortly published in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses de Chine par des missionnaires jésuites.

Soon after 1710, a formula for hard-paste porcelain was developed at the Meissen porcelain plant in Dresden, and it was on the market by 1713. Porcelain manufactures sprung created in Nymphenburg, Bavaria (1754), Capodimonte, Naples (1743), and many other cities within a few decades, frequently supported by a local king.

17th Century

Conditions in China forced some of its potters to Japan in the 17th century, taking with them the expertise of how to manufacture delicate porcelain. The Dutch East India Company began importing Japanese porcelain into Europe in the mid-nineteenth century.

Kakiemon items were made in Arita factories during the period, and they had a lot in common with the Chinese Famille Verte style. The exceptional quality of its enamel ornamentation was highly regarded in the West, and it was frequently replicated by prominent European porcelain makers. The Japanese government designated it as an important “intangible cultural asset” in 1971.

Stoke-on-Trent, in North Staffordshire, became a significant pottery center in the 17th century. Wedgwood, Spode, Royal Doulton, and Minton all made significant contributions to the industry’s evolution.

18th Century, 19th Century and Late 19th Century

Earthenware is pottery that has not been vitrified and is therefore water porous. It has been used to make a variety of pots from ancient times, and it was the most prevalent form of pottery outside of the Far East until the 18th century.

Clay, quartz, and feldspar are common ingredients in earthenware. Terracotta, a form of earthenware, is a porous clay-based pottery that can be unglazed or glazed. Vessels (particularly flower pots), water and waste water pipes, bricks, and surface ornamentation in building construction are all examples of its usage. Terracotta has long been a popular ceramic media.

The ornamentation of glazed porcelain objects such as plates, bowls, vases, or sculptures is known as china painting or porcelain painting. The object’s body might be made of hard-paste porcelain, which was developed in China in the 7th or 8th centuries, or soft-paste porcelain (typically bone china), which was produced in Europe in the 18th century.

Glazed ceramics played a major role in Islamic art from the eighth through the eighteenth century, mainly in the form of complex pottery, and developed on strong Persian and Egyptian pre-Islamic traditions in particular. Islamic potters produced tin-opacified glazing, with the first specimens dated from the 8th century and found as blue-painted pottery in Basra.

The Islamic world had interaction with China, and many Chinese ornamental elements were gradually adopted by the Islamic world. Persian crafts eventually eased Islamic limitations on figurative ornamentation, and painted figurative images became increasingly popular.

From the late 18th century, the advent of white, or near white, firing bodies in Europe, like as Josiah Wedgwood’s Creamware and porcelain, diminished demand for Delftware, faience, and majolica. Tin oxide is still used in glazes (glaze firing) today, but only in conjunction with other, less expensive opacifying chemicals. It is mostly used in low-temperature applications and by studio potters, such as Picasso, who used tin glazes in his work.

Soft-paste porcelain was originally produced in the 1680s at Rouen, but it was in St.Cloud that letters-patent were given in 1702. In 1730, the Duc de Bourbon built a soft-paste factory, the Chantilly porcelain, in the grounds of his Château de Chantilly; in 1740, artisans from Chantilly founded the Vincennes factory, which moved to bigger facilities in Sèvres in 1756.

In the second part of the 18th century, Sèvres’ outstanding soft-paste propelled it to the forefront of Europe. In 1742, the first soft paste was shown in England, based on the Saint-Cloud recipe. A patent was issued in 1749 for the first bone china, which was later refined by Josiah Spode. Chelsea, Bow, St James’s, Bristol, Derby, and Lowestoft were the leading English porcelain manufactures in the 18th century.

Porcelain tableware and ornamental artifacts had become mandatory among Europe’s rich middle classes by the end of the 18th century, and manufacturers could be found in almost every country, many of which are still manufacturing today. Early European porcelain reintroduced the love for merely ornamental figurines of humans or animals, which had been a characteristic of various ancient cultures, frequently as grave goods, in addition to tableware.

Many of these religious figurines were still being created in China as white de Chine religious figures, and many had made their way to Europe. Figures in Europe were virtually totally secular, and they were soon boldly and beautifully painted in groups, typically with a realistic scene and a strong story aspect.

20th Century

Bone china, often known as fine china, is a soft-paste porcelain made from bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It is described as pottery with a transparent body and a minimum of 30% phosphate generated from animal bone, as well as computed calcium phosphate. Bone china, which was created by English potter Josiah Spode, is noted for its exceptional levels of whiteness and translucency, as well as its excellent mechanical strength and chip resistance.

Because of its great strength, it may be made with narrower cross-sections than other porcelains. It’s vitrified like stoneware, but the mineral characteristics make it transparent. Bone china was almost solely an English product from its inception until the latter half of the twentieth century, with manufacture essentially localized in Stoke-on-Trent.

Mintons, Coalport, Spode, Royal Crown Derby, Royal Doulton, Wedgwood, and Worcester are just a few of the notable English companies that manufactured or still make it. In the United Kingdom, the terms “china” and “porcelain” can refer to bone china, and the name “English porcelain” has been used to describe it both in the UK and internationally. Fine china is a word used to describe crockery that does not include bone ash and is not necessarily bone china.

The Mingei folk movement, pioneered by potters Shoji Hamada, Kawai Kajiro, and others, rekindled interest in the village potter’s art in the twentieth century. They researched old ways in order to save native wares that were on the verge of extinction. At Shiga, Iga, Karatsu, Hagi, and Bizen, modern masters apply traditional methods to elevate pottery and porcelain to new heights of success.

Living cultural treasures have been declared for a few notable potters. The Raku family continued to make the rough tea bowls that had thrilled connoisseurs in Kyoto’s ancient city. Potters in Mino proceeded to re-create the traditional formulae of Momoyama-era Seto-style tea dishes, such as Oribe ware and of course decorative purposes. By the 1990s, numerous master potters had moved away from traditional kilns and were producing classic products across Japan.

Raku Firing Technique – What Is Raku Firing Technique? – Raku firing is a common type of low-temperature (low temperature) firing. While the pots are still hot and the glaze is still molten, the pottery is taken from the kiln and put into combustible materials (raw materials) then removed.

Studio pottery is created by artists working alone or in small groups to create one-of-a-kind products visual arts or limited runs, with all phases of production generally carried out by one person. It is represented by potters all around the world, but it has deep origins in the United Kingdom, with potters like Bernard Leach, William Staite Murray, Dora Billington, Lucie Rie, and Hans Coper.

Bernard Leach (1887–1979) developed a ceramic style influenced by Far Eastern and medieval English styles. After a brief foray into earthenware, he shifted his focus to stoneware burnt at high temperatures in big oil or wood-fueled kilns. In the mid-twentieth century, this style dominated British studio pottery.

Nampeyo, Elva Nampeyo, and Dextra Quotskuyva of the Hopi; Leonidas Tapia of San Juan Pueblo; and Maria Martinez and Julian Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo are all well-known Pueblo potters. Martinez and her husband Julian rediscovered the process of making traditional San Ildefonso Pueblo Black-on-Black pottery in the early twentieth century.

Definitions

Pottery Wheel

A potter’s wheel is a machine used to shape round ceramic ware in pottery. The wheel may also be used to reduce surplus body from cured ceramics and to add incised ornamentation or color rings.

Delft Pottery

Delftware, often known as Delft Blue, is a generic word for Dutch tin-glazed earthenware, which is a kind of faience. The majority of it is blue and white pottery, and the Dutch city of Delft was the principal center of manufacturing, although the word also encompasses goods of various colors and created abroad.

Kiln Atmosphere

Electric kiln firings are often thought to have a neutral or slightly oxidizing environment. Their primary point is that enough oxygen is present in the kiln for the glaze and clay body ingredients to oxidize.

Biscuit Firing

Biscuit pottery is defined as any pottery (bisque ware) that has been baked in a kiln without the application of a ceramic glaze. This might be a finished product such as biscuit porcelain or unglazed earthenware, or it can be an intermediate stage in the production of a glazed end product.

Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood was a potter, entrepreneur, and abolitionist from England. He founded the Wedgwood firm in 1759, and by rigorous research, he improved ceramic bodies and was a pioneer in the industrialization of European pottery manufacturing.

Handbuilding

Hand building is a ceramics method in which you make shapes using clay and your hands rather than a throwing wheel. Handbuilding was the only means for ceramicists to make utilitarian and aesthetic ceramic shapes before the invention of the wheel.

The Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world’s foremost museum of applied arts, decorative arts, and design, with approximately 2.27 million artifacts in its permanent collection. It was named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert when it was founded in 1852.

Metal Oxides

Metal oxides are used to color glazes, bodies, engobes, and stains in ceramics. Some metal oxides are picky when it comes to color development, necessitating specialized chemistry in the host glaze, while others necessitate specific burning conditions.