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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 |
 Near the ancient ruins of Casas Grandes in northern Chihuahua, Mexico, just south of the San Luis Mountains, a new artistic movement is flourishing. Mata Ortiz, a small village barely three streets wide, is home to Juan Quezada, the self-taught originator of Mata Ortiz pottery, and his predominantly young followers. Discovered in 1976 by Spencer MacCallum, Juan Quezada and his extended family of brothers, sisters, their children and neighbors became the core of this now thriving pottery movement. Quickly earning acceptance as a contemporary art form, this beautiful and excitingly varied yet simple pottery is accepted and admired as a legitimate folk art. As the eloquent design of pottery inspired those who experienced it, more and more young artists chose to follow Juan Quezada's inspirational model. New potting families developed and the art form continues to expand. This vibrant flow of new ideas without the restraining bonds of traditional practices or gender constraints to impede creativity has enabled the pottery of Mata Ortiz to avoid the pitfalls of derivative repetition that have doomed many previous folk art movements. As a collector, the joy of being part of a contemporary artistic movement that is recognized and appreciated today adds to the excitement of ownership of these ever evolving designs.
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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 |
 A person who makes pottery is traditionally known as a potter. The potter's most basic tool is his or her hands, however many additional tools have been created over the long history of pottery manufacture, including the potter's wheel, various paddles, shaping tools (or ribs), slab rollers, and cutting tools. Forming techniquesPottery can be produced in three basic forming traditions: handwork, wheel work, and slipcasting. It's very common for wheel-worked pieces to be finished by handwork techniques. Slipcast pieces tend not to be, as that negates one of the prime advantages of casting.
Handwork methods can be considered both the most primitive and the most individualized techniques, where pieces are constructed from hand-rolled coils, slabs, ropes, and balls of clay, often joined with a liquid clay slurry, or slip. No two pieces of handwork will be exactly the same, so it is not suitable for making precisely matched sets of items such as dinnerware. Doing handwork enables the potters to use their imagination to create one-of-a-kind works of art. These methods are often referred to as "handbuilding".
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Tuesday, 08 August 2006 |
 Pottery is a type of ceramic material, which the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) has defined as "(a)ll fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products." The term pottery is also used for a technique involving ceramic, where clay is mixed with other minerals and is formed into objects, including vessels generally designed for utilitarian purposes. A Pottery is a facility of any size, from a modest studio to an industrialized factory, where pottery is made. Where resources are available - raw materials, workers, transportation - groups of potteries may exist. Due to the large number of pottery factories, or colloquially 'Pot Banks', the City of Stoke-on-Trent in England became known as The Potteries; one of the first industrial cities of the modern era where as early as 1785 200 pottery manufacturers employed 20,000 workers. The Potters is the nickname of the local football club, Stoke City F.C.. The same name is used for sports teams in the one-time "Pottery Capital of the World," East Liverpool, Ohio.
Pottery production is a process where wet clay body, clay mixed with other minerals, is shaped and allowed to dry. The shaped clay body, or piece, ware or article, may be "bisque or biscuit fired" in a kiln to induce permanent changes that result in increased mechanical strength, and then fired a second time after adding a glaze or a piece may be once fired by applying appropriate glaze to the dry unfired clay and firing in one cycle. |
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