Raku ware is a type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of chawan tea bowls. It is traditionally characterised by being hand-shaped rather than thrown, fairly porous vessels, which result from low firing temperatures, lead glazes and the removal of pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot. In the traditional Japanese process, the fired raku piece is removed from the hot kiln and is allowed to cool in the open air.
Pottery and porcelain, is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Kilns have produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed pottery, glazed stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exceptionally long and successful history of ceramic production. Earthenwares were created as early as the Jōmon period, giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world. Japan is further distinguished by the unusual esteem that ceramics holds within its artistic tradition, owing to the enduring popularity of the tea ceremony.
Bernard Howell Leach, was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery".
The term "ethical pot" was coined by Oliver Watson in his book Studio Pottery: Twentieth Century British Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum to describe a 20th-century trend in studio pottery that favoured plain, utilitarian ceramics. Watson said that the ethical pot,"lovingly made in the correct way and with the correct attitude, would contain a spiritual and moral dimension." Its leading proponents were Bernard Leach and a more controversial group of post-war British studio potters. They were theoretically opposed to the expressive pots or fine art pots of potters such as William Staite Murray, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.
Shōji Hamada was a Japanese potter. He had a significant influence on studio pottery of the twentieth century, and a major figure of the mingei (folk-art) movement, establishing the town of Mashiko as a world-renowned pottery centre. In 1955 he was designated a "Living National Treasure".
Studio pottery is pottery made by professional and amateur artists or artisans working alone or in small groups, making unique items or short runs. Typically, all stages of manufacture are carried out by the artists themselves. Studio pottery includes functional wares such as tableware and cookware, and non-functional wares such as sculpture, with vases and bowls covering the middle ground, often being used only for display. Studio potters can be referred to as ceramic artists, ceramists, ceramicists or as an artist who uses clay as a medium.
The Leach Pottery was founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada in St Ives, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom.
Michael Ambrose Cardew (1901–1983), was an English studio potter who worked in West Africa for twenty years.
David Andrew Leach OBE was an English studio potter and the elder son of Bernard Leach and Muriel Hoyle Leach, Bernard's first wife.
Alan Caiger-Smith MBE was a British studio potter and writer on pottery.
KatherineHarriot Duncombe Pleydell-Bouverie was a pioneer in modern English Studio pottery.
William "Bill" Marshall was an English studio potter, known for his Japan-influenced style.
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott OAM (1935–2013) was an Australian ceramic artist. She was recognized as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists. By the time she died she was regarded as "one of the world's greatest contemporary potters". She worked in Australia, England, Europe, the USA, New Zealand, Japan and Korea. In a career spanning nearly 60 years, influences from her apprenticeships to English potters were still apparent in her later work. But in the 1980s she turned away from production pottery to making porcelain still-life groups largely influenced by the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi.
Mark Hewitt is an English studio potter living in the small town of Pittsboro, North Carolina outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 2015 he received a United States Artist Fellowship, for contributions to the creative landscape and arts ecosystems of the country. He was a finalist for the 2015 Balvenie Rare Craft Fellowship Award, for contributions to the maintenance and revival of traditional or rare craft techniques. In 2014 he was awarded a Voulkos Fellowship at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana, for outstanding contributions to the ceramic arts.
Ceramics in Mexico date back thousands of years before the Pre-Columbian period, when ceramic arts and pottery crafts developed with the first advanced civilizations and cultures of Mesoamerica. With one exception, pre-Hispanic wares were not glazed, but rather burnished and painted with colored fine clay slips. The potter's wheel was unknown as well; pieces were shaped by molding, coiling and other methods,
Harry Clemens Davis was a Welsh-born New Zealand potter, and husband of May Davis.
Lisa Hammond is a British studio potter. She is a Fellow of the Craft Potters Association of Britain. She has specialised in vapour glazing since leaving college, first using salt and, since the early 1980s, soda glaze. She produces a range of functional ware for the preparation, cooking and serving of food. Alongside functional ware, she makes a range of work that she describes as "individual and playful".
Mata Ortiz pottery is a recreation of the Mogollon pottery found in and around the archeological site of Casas Grandes (Paquimé) in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Named after the modern town of Mata Ortiz, which is near the archeological site, the style was propagated by Juan Quezada Celado. Quezada learned on his own to recreate this ancient pottery and then went on to update it. By the mid 1970s, Quezada was selling his pottery and teaching family and friends to make it and the pottery was able to penetrate the U.S. markets thanks to efforts by Spencer MacCallum and later Walt Parks along with Mexican traders. By the 1990s, the pottery was being shown in museums and other cultural institutions and sold in fine galleries. The success of the pottery, which is sold for its aesthetic rather than its utilitarian value, has brought the town of Mata Ortiz out of poverty, with most of its population earning income from the industry, directly or indirectly.
Jack Doherty is a Northern Irish studio potter and author. He is perhaps best known for his vessels made of soda-fired porcelain. He has been featured in a number of books, and his work has been exhibited widely in both Europe and North America. Articles of his have appeared in various pottery journals and he has been Chair of the Craft Potters Association.
Denise Wren was an Australian-born British studio potter and craftsperson. Wren was one of the first female studio potters in Britain. She studied and taught with the Kingston School of Art, Knox Guild and Camberwell College of Arts. Wren and her family subsequently set up the Oxshott Pottery and wrote on the subjects of ceramics, textiles and making.
