1. Ceramics Historical Piece
Create a piece influenced
By your research about ceramics history or using art historical references

2. When did the use of pottery begin?
In some ancient communities it is believed that basket making lead to the discovery of clay pottery.
Baskets were made of strong plant life for heavy loads. They were lined with animal skins to carry water
At some point, someone discovered an easier, less wasteful, way to waterproof a basket - by smearing the inside with a layer of stiff mud or clay. Shards of pottery (broken pieces) have been found dating as far back as 20,000-10,000BC

3. Early Firing of Pots
No one really knows when or who first started to use the new technology of ceramics, but most speculate that it was discovered by some prehistoric person; perhaps a persona set a basket with clay too near a fire. When the basket burned, the clay hardened. Perhaps it happened when a home or village burned. The result, was a stronger more durable pot.

4. Prehistoric Pottery Early pots were made with the coil method.
The potter's wheel was probably invented in Mesopotamia around 4,000 BC, but spread across nearly all Eurasia and much of Africa, though it remained unknown in the Americas until the arrival of Europeans.
Decoration of the clay by incising and painting is found very widely, and was initially geometric, but often included figurative designs from very early on.

5. Wall Decoration
In ancient Mesopotamia, glazes and colors were used to decorate tiles – which were then used in architecture and as wall decoration.

6. Early Greek Pottery…
Many civilizations developed pottery techniques for use in ceremonial and functional aspects of daily life. One culture to look at in-depth is Ancient Greek Pottery. Greek Art Overview > Greek Pottery Creation >

7. Your Assignment
For this assignment, you will be creating a ceramic representation using an artistic movement, idea, style or art form from the past as your inspiration. This can be by either relating ceramics to an artistic movement, such as cubism, or creating a piece of artwork based on a style of ceramics from another culture or civilization. (see the lists below as a starting point…)
The requirements for this project are:
Research! You must have information and visual resources BEFORE you begin
Sketched ideas showing thought process and relation to the art historical inspiration
Ceramic piece (or pieces) relating to art history. Can be thrown, hand-built or combination
Research paper (1-2 pages max) – details to follow…
This will NOT be a direct COPY of another artist’s work, or an artwork with a copy of an artist’s painting on it. You will use your inspiration and ideas to create an artwork showing what you have learned and representing that in a ceramic piece of some kind.

8. Example – Picasso
How does an artist translate his/her work into different artforms?

9. Picasso

12. Kandinsky Abstract art, non-objective
Art often related to musical compositions
Geometric shapes, lines

14. Mondrian

15. After Mondrian…

16. Lichtenstein

17. Matisse

19. Van Gogh