Pottery: From Clay to Ceramics

The art of spinning a piece of clay, shaping it up with your bare hands until it becomes a jar, an amphora, a pitcher, a mug or whatever has been always a fascinating process for me. I remember pottery workshops at school and how clumsy I was. But if obtaining an object out of the blue may look mysterious in a way, placing it in a kiln to bake it is certainly magical. As usual, I wonder who was the first to have the brilliant idea of cooking a block of mud. Granted that this someone may have discovered some wet clay mound accidentally solidifying under the sun but it takes centuries to take that clay and put it in the fire to produce an object. And if that is not enough, glazing it and placing it back in the kiln to make it colorful is a great sample of the evolution of tools and skills throughout history, the history of our civilization.