The document provides an overview of various clay techniques and processes used in ceramics including pinching, coiling, slab building, and throwing. It describes the three stages of working with clay: wet, leather hard, and bone dry. It also outlines the firing process from greenware to bisque to glazed pieces. Additional finishing methods like burnishing and underglazing are mentioned.

1. Chapter 12 Clay 8 th -7 th century BCE Jar with frieze of bulls, Neo-Assyrian, Iran Raku pot

3. Clay figures

6. Glazed pinch pot Glazed coil pot

7. Slab bowl Hand thrown ceramics

9. Clay mask Burnished Pot

12. Glass Glass has been used for at least 4 thousand years as a material for practical containers of all shapes and sizes. In the Middle Ages, stained glass was used for churches and blown-glass pieces have been made in Venice Italy since the Renaissance. Glass is a fine medium for decorative inlays in a variety of objects including jewelry. Dale Chihuly, blown-glass Installation of Chihuly’s in the Kalamazoo Institute of Art

13. Metal Metal’s primary characteristics are strength and formability. The various types of metal most often used for sculpture can be hammered, cut, drawn out, welded, joined with rivets or cast. Early metal smiths created tools, vessels, armor, and weapons. The bronze doors, created by Lorenzo Ghiberti, at left, to the Florence Baptistery are a series of New Testament scenes, plus saints, in the format of 28 quatrefoils. Each scene employs just a few figures, dramatically set in high relief against a neutral background, with the context conveyed by minimal stage like settings though with some minutely observed details in the landscapes, and all executed in the graceful linear rhythms of the International Gothic style.

14. Wood The living spirit of wood is given a second life in handmade objects. Growth characteristics if individual trees remain visible in the grain of the wood long after trees are cut, giving wood vitality not found in other materials. Wood work by Virginia Dotson

15. Fiber Fiber art includes such processes as weaving, stitching, basketmaking, surface design, wearable art and handmade papermaking. These fiber processes use natural and synthetic fibers in both traditional and innovative ways. Artists working with fiber draw on the heritage of traditional practices and also explore new avenues of expression. In the example at left, weaving is based on the interlacing of fibers and cross fibers. Weavers create patterns by changing the number and placements of interwoven threads. Islamic Persia during the period of the Safavid Dynasty in the 16 th century created some of the most spectacular carpets in the world. In the Ardabil Carpet dated 946, at left, contains about 300 knots per square inch. Requiring approximately 25 million knots when finished.

16. Fiber Picasso's Studio , 1991 Dancing at the Louvre , 1991 Faith Ringgold began her artistic career more than 35 years ago as a painter. Today, she is best known for her painted story quilts -- art that combines painting, quilted fabric and storytelling. In addition to exhibiting her work in major museums across the world, she has written and illustrated five children's books. In this particular series, Ringgold combines the Afro-American tradition of quilt-making with an insertion of black society into the Western (European based) history of Art.

17. Innovative Fiber 80 BACKS, 1976-80, burlap and resin, life size Innovations in off-loom fiber work have taken the fiber arts into the realm of sculpture in a variety of ways. Abakanowicz has been at the leading edge of nontraditional uses of fiber since the 1960s. Her powerful series called 80 backs has unforgettable quality – at once personal and universal. The earthly color and textures of the formed burlap suggest the capacity to endure dire hardships and to survive with strength. Her forms have what she feels all art must have – mysterious, bewitching power. COEXISTENCE 2002, burlap, resin, group of 14 pieces