Ceramics: Final Stage

 

Before going to class on the first day of our ceramics project, I had read an article about elephants and how they can mourn and comfort each other during a death. This stuck to me because of how many people I have lost in the past few years and how I still feel lost on how to mourn and get over the loss. I have lost my grandpa, my first dog, my good friend, and other relatives all within the past two years. When I look at this elephant, I will not think of just them but know that one day I will look back on their memory and not be sad anymore. I want to learn from the grieving process of the elephants and remember that it is all a part of life.

Though I ended up going through multiple elephants until achieving this final piece, I am happy with my results. I worked very hard on getting the realistic skeletal structure of the elephant’s face to come through as well as the wrinkles and the natural flow of the ears. After making the first one, it was got easier and easier to remake them. I chose to stain my piece with wood polish, and then smudge white acrylic paint over the tusks for a worn, ivory look.

 

As for my vessel, this one came to me as I was creating it. I originally made the tree trunk to be a container for the elephant to sit on, but decided I would keep the elephant a separate piece and go a different route. I then began to build a nest, not sure what I was going to put inside. After layering bits of clay to form the nest, I then debated about whether or not I should put a bird or a few eggs. Then I realized those weren’t my only options… I could put anything in there I want. I relate this piece to myself because often times people who first meet me tell me I am not what they expected me to be like at all… so in order to portray that I filled the nest with cube-shaped eggs. One is cracked and coming out of it one will be surprised to find a fried egg leaking out onto the outer edges of the nest.

 

 

Ceramic Making: The Beginning

I’m not quite sure how I feel about clay yet… I remember making pinch pots and learning how to score and slip in high school, but I also remember not being very good at it. I struggled on the first day we went to the Ceramics building. I was very unprepared and had no idea where to begin. I played around with a few ideas for a while, but ended up scrapping an entire coil pot I had spent almost all of class making.

The next class was a bit more successful… I had made a few drawn sketches of what I wanted to make. For my vessel, I was thinking of making either a hollow elephant head or a turtle shell. After taking a few opinions from my peers, I decided to go ahead and try the elephant head (though it seemed rather difficult.)

In the end I really liked how it turned out! Making the entire head and trunk hollow was difficult, and his tusk an ears are EXTREMELY fragile… but if his trunk manages to stay up and he doesn’t fall apart, I would consider this a successful piece. I have also made a hollow, cylindrical  vessel for him to sit on like a lid. I have yet to decide how to decorate it, but hopefully I will finish it be next class so I can start working on my next piece.

Ceramics from Islam

Islamic potters are known for their use of white and blue color schemes as well as luxurious metallic sheen. European  ceramics original inspiration and technical knowledge comes from Islamic countries. According to Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Arts, success of the Islamic art is based off of “a love of colour, a taste of geometry and pattern, and the ability to adopt and adapt.”

Landscapes in south-west Iran supply pomegranate groves with colors of scarlet flowers and rose. In avoidance of human imagery due to religious reasons, “geometric and floral designs flourished in a way unknown in the icon-oriented Christian world.” It is thought that Islamic culture does not receive enough acknowledgment for originating and inspiring the works of Europe and Asia.

As the Islamic world “acted as a middleman” in major trade routes of the world, the European searched for Oriental silks and spices. In using their ability to “adopt and adapt” to the demands of the Europeans. Islamic and Asian potters began to play off one another’s ideas to appeal to the European traders.

“The skill of the Islamic potter now lies in the way he adopted the Chinese model, and adapted it to his own taste.”

White tin-glaze was soon created by the Iraqi potters, and Chinese white porcelains led to the development of stone-paste bodies to try and mimic the translucency of the Chinese imports. With the addition of color and arabesque design, the resulting innovations now created their own unique style with a specifically Islamic character. 

“It is a matter of great urgency, in these days of international, inter-racial, and inter-religious tension, that Islamic artistic and cultural traditions should be understood and appreciated in non-Islamic areas of the world. It is the hope that this will introduce the works of the great craftsman potters of the Islamic past, and that through understanding and appreciation of their unique contribution to the history of the world ceramics there will grow a much deeper respect for the Islamic world as a whole.”

 Dish with poly-chrome glazing , Presented by the American Research Center in Egypt, 1974

Two different traditions of glazing were inherited: a glaze fluxed with soda or potash, called an alkaline glaze, and a glaze fluxed with lead-oxide, called a lead glaze.

A new period of experimentation was under way. For this piece, different glazes – green, brown and yellow – have been used to portray a highly stylized peacock. Although the design itself is remarkably sophisticated, it is evident that the experimental phase is not yet complete. Alongside the decorated areas, the potter has left parts of the bowl surface completely un-glazed.

 Jug with epigraph decoration, Bequeathed by Professor A. H. Sayce, 1935.

After initially using the stone-paste body to imitate the white Chinese porcelains, the Islamic potter in his accustomed way started to add color. First he added a single color to the glaze – cobalt for blue, manganese for purple, or copper for turquoise. In a lead glaze copper turns green, but in the alkaline glazes used on stone-paste, it turns turquoise, and it is this turquoise which has been the hall-mark of Persian ceramics and tiled domes ever since its introduction in the eleventh – twelfth century. The design on the jug is calligraphic. The words and letters had a holiness of their own.

Bowl with radial design and drop-shaped cartouches (1638), Gift of Gerald Reitlinger, 1978.

As figurative decoration declines, the commonest designs are now geometric with a variety of arabesque patterns used as fillers.  This piece has a ‘Maltese’ cross which is emphasized visually by its color, by its wide, white border, and by the wide, white surround to the pear-shaped cartouches in each of its arms.  The primary cross-shape is emphasized by its pointed arms, and by the use of the same arabesque design as a filler for each of them. The four secondary arms have square ends and the designs used as fillers alternate, two and two. The result is that although the bowl is decorated with an eight-point radial design, the eye reads it as a cross.

Jug with flowers against a fish-scale background, Bequeathed by C. D. E. Fortnum, 1899. 

 The appearance of recognizable species of flowers on Iznik ceramics was due to the rise to eminence of one particular artist, Kara Memi, at the court of Suleyman the Magnificent. Kara Memi transformed Ottoman illumination by introducing naturalistic flowers, such as tulips, roses, hyacinths and carnations, to replace the traditional, stylized, Islamic floral motifs and arabesques.

Although some traditional elements were still retained, the naturalistic flower designs clearly captured the imagination of the Iznik potters. First making their appearance in the 1540’s, they were accompanied by a new color scheme. To the blue and turquoise of the preceding decade were added a soft sage-green, a manganese-purple, and a soft greenish-black for outlines. Experiments were made with coloring the background, and a fish-scale pattern introduced to help alleviate the monotony of a large area of single color.

Resource: http://jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/collection/7/674/676