Snail Scott on thu 2 sep 04
At 10:56 PM 9/1/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>...what is the difference between
>pottery and ceramics?
Well, as I see it, pottery involves pots.
Simple. If it's made of fired clay, then it's
ceramic. Spark plugs, space shuttle tiles,
house bricks and Hummel figurines are all
ceramic and are not pottery. But pottery
can be ceramic, too.
However, there are actually arguments about
this, (!) based on regional usages and such.
For some people (mostly British, I think)
'pottery' means the clay material itself, as
in, "that doorstop is made out of pottery".
For others, 'pottery' is used to signify
handmade ceramics regardless of the nature
of the object produced. 'Pottery' is sometimes
used to imply earthenware or stoneware as
opposed to china or porcelain, but this is an
antiques-trade usage, not a maker's usage.
'Ceramics' is a term with specific technical
meaning, describing (at its simplest) fired
clay and its cousins and variants. However,
it has also come to be applied to pre-made
slip-cast work sold in hobby shops, in such a
way as to make that its sole meaning for many
people. Thus, many people, especially folks
who sell at local craft fairs or venues where
standards are variable, avoid using the term
'ceramics' for fear of implying that it's
pre-made manufactured work which they've
merely decorated. They may call it simply
'clay' instead, or 'pottery', even if they
don't make pots, just to differentiate it
foran uninformed audience.
I hate to kowtow to that sort of ignorance,
but I confess that in certain company I have
called my work 'clay sculpture' rather than
ceramics, to distinguish it from hobby-shop
figurines and their ilk. And although it's
definitely not pots (I said a while back that
you'd be hard-pressed to balance a tortilla
chip on my work, much less mistake it for
dinnerware) I've actually had people insist
that it's 'pottery', not 'ceramics', since
it's made of 'regular clay' and not slip-cast.
Do I think that's silly? Yup.
It's all ceramics, but it's only pottery if
it's a pot. Duh. And I'm sticking to that! ;)
But language is governed by cultural usage,
not definitions, (not even mine!) so you will
run into these odd applications of the
terminology. I just try to roll with it, smile
and nod when people apply their own idiom, and
only correct them if they seem truly confused.
-Snail Scott
p.s. I was going to say that all pottery is
ceramics, but not all ceramics is pottery.
Then I wondered, CAN it be pottery if it's
not ceramics? After all, a cast iron kettle
is surely a pot. But is it pottery? Is a
Pyrex dish 'pottery'? The conventional usage
certainly says no. But it doesn't make much
sense, really. Pointless to crab about it
(see 'culture' argument above), but kinda
annoying anyway, reinforcing the 'material
trumps function' usage that I find so silly.
-S.
Woozie on sun 5 sep 04
Thank you, Scott for your thoughtful answer. Perhaps it wasn't such
a "stupid" question after all. From your thoughts, and a few days
wandering the web, I've decided that I'm trying to become a "potter" (even
when producing non-functional wares). Always good to know how to
answer "what do you want to be when you grow up?" even if I don't think I
ever will...
~~Woozie
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