Studio pottery in the context of "Fine art"

Terra sigillata is a term with at least three distinct meanings: as a description of medieval medicinal earth; in archaeology, as a general term for some of the fine red ancient Roman pottery with glossy surface slips made in specific areas of the Roman Empire; and more recently, as a description of a contemporary studio pottery technique supposedly inspired by ancient pottery. Usually roughly translated as 'sealed earth', the meaning of 'terra sigillata' is 'clay bearing little images' (latin sigilla), not 'clay with a sealed (impervious) surface'. The archaeological term is applied, however, to plain-surfaced pots as well as those decorated with figures in relief, because it does not refer to the decoration but to the makers stamp impressed in the bottom of the vessel.

Terra sigillata as an archaeological term refers chiefly to a specific type of plain and decorated tableware made in Italy and in Gaul (France and the Rhineland) during the Roman Empire. These vessels have glossy surface slips ranging from a soft lustre to a brilliant glaze-like shine, in a characteristic colour range from pale orange to bright red; they were produced in standard shapes and sizes and were manufactured on an industrial scale and widely exported. The sigillata industries grew up in areas where there were existing traditions of pottery manufacture, and where the clay deposits proved suitable. The products of the Italian workshops are also known as Aretine ware from Arezzo and have been collected and admired since the Renaissance. The wares made in the Gaulish factories are often referred to by English-speaking archaeologists as samian ware. Closely related pottery fabrics made in the North African and Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire are not usually referred to as terra sigillata, but by more specific names, e.g. African red slip wares. All these types of pottery are significant for archaeologists: they can often be closely dated, and their distribution casts light on aspects of the ancient Roman economy.

Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks in the fine arts. The glass objects created are typically intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement, rather than fulfill functions (other than perhaps as vases) such as tableware. Though usage varies, the term is properly restricted to glass made as art in small workshops, typically with the personal involvement of the artist who designed the piece. This is in contrast to art glass, made by craftspeople in factories, and glass art, covering the whole range of glass with artistic interest made throughout history. Both art glass and studio glass originate in the 19th century, and the terms compare with studio pottery and art pottery, but in glass the term "studio glass" is mostly used for work made in the period beginning in the 1960s with a major revival in interest in artistic glassmaking.

Pieces are often unique, or made in a small limited edition. Their prices may range from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars (US). For the largest installations, the prices are in the millions.

Art pottery is a term for pottery with artistic aspirations, made in relatively small quantities, mostly between about 1870 and 1930. Typically, sets of the usual tableware items are excluded from the term; instead the objects produced are mostly decorative vessels such as vases, jugs, bowls and the like which are sold singly. The term originated in the later 19th century, and is usually used only for pottery produced from that period onwards. It tends to be used for ceramics produced in factory conditions, but in relatively small quantities, using skilled workers, with at the least close supervision by a designer or some sort of artistic director. Studio pottery is a step up, supposed to be produced in even smaller quantities, with the hands-on participation of an artist-potter, who often performs all or most of the production stages. But the use of both terms can be elastic. Ceramic art is often a much wider term, covering all pottery that comes within the scope of art history, but "ceramic artist" is often used for hands-on artist potters in studio pottery.

The term implied both a progressive design style and also a closer relationship between the design of a piece and its production process. Art pottery was part of the Arts and Crafts movement, and a reaction to the technically superb but over-ornamented wares made by the large European factories, especially in porcelain. Later art pottery represented the ceramic arm of the Aesthetic Movement and Art Nouveau. Many of the wares are earthenware or stoneware, and there is often an interest in East Asian ceramics, especially historical periods when the individual craftsmen had been allowed a large role in the design and decoration. There is often great interest in ceramic glaze effects, including lustreware, and relatively less in painted decoration (still less in transfer printing).

Ash glazes are ceramic glazes made from the ash of various kinds of wood or straw. They have historically been important in East Asia, especially Chinese pottery, Korean pottery, and Japanese pottery. Many traditionalist East Asian potteries still use ash glazing, and it has seen a large revival in studio pottery in the West and East. Some potters like to achieve random effects by setting up the kiln so that ash created during firing falls onto the pots; this is called "natural" or "naturally occurring" ash glaze. Otherwise the ash is mixed with water, and often clay, and applied as a paste.

Ash glazing began around 1500 BC, in China during the Shang dynasty, initially by accident as ash from the burnt wood in the kiln landed on pots. Around 1000 BC, the Chinese apparently realized that the ash covering the pieces was causing the glaze so they started adding the ash as a glaze before the pot went into the kiln. Ash glaze was the first glaze used in East Asia, and contained only ash, clay, and water.

Salt-glaze or salt glaze pottery is pottery, usually stoneware, with a ceramic glaze of glossy, translucent and slightly orange-peel-like texture which was formed by throwing common salt into the kiln during the higher temperature part of the firing process. Sodium from the salt reacts with silica in the clay body to form a glassy coating of sodium silicate. The glaze may be colourless or may be coloured various shades of brown (from iron oxide), blue (from cobalt oxide), or purple (from manganese oxide).

Except for its use by a few studio potters, the process is obsolete. Before its demise, in the face of environmental clean air restrictions, it was last used in the production of salt-glazed sewer-pipes. The only commercial pottery in the UK currently licensed to produce salt glaze pottery is Errington Reay at Bardon Mill in Northumberland which was founded in 1878.

The Fulham Pottery was founded in Fulham, London, by John Dwight in 1672, at the junction of New King's Road and Burlington Road, Fulham, not far from Putney Bridge. Dwight is the earliest clearly documented maker of stoneware in England, although immigrant Dutch or German potters were probably active several decades before. By 1690 there was a rival stoneware operation in Fulham, run by the Dutch Elers brothers, who after a few years went off to become important early figures in transforming the Staffordshire pottery industry.

In its first years it was a pioneering force in English pottery in several respects, in particular salt-glazed wares and figures. After Dwight's death in 1703 the pottery made less ambitious stonewares until a revival in the later 19th century. It operated on the same site until 1956, and then until at least the 1980s as a base for studio pottery to be fired. Today, all that remains of the original pottery is one large bottle kiln, "probably 19th-century", which is now a Grade II listed building.