The document summarizes the lost wax casting process for metal sculpture and provides an overview of various craft mediums including ceramics, glass, metal, wood, fiber, and their techniques. It discusses definitions of craft versus art and profiles notable craftspeople like Maria Martinez, Dale Chihuly, Emma-Kate Francis, and the Gee's Bend quilters. The document blurs boundaries between craft and fine art through examples like Peter Voulkos's pottery and Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party.

1. Chapter 12
Crafts

2. Lost Wax Casting Process
• 1- Create a clay sculpture as a model.
• 2- Create a 2 part mold with rubber and plaster over the
clay core.
• 3- Create a wax replica of the clay sculpture by pouring wax
into the 2 part mold.
• 4- Attach sprues and gates, which are wax rods all over the
piece, creating an artery system.
• 5- Encase the wax sculpture with the rod system in a
ceramic shell.
• 6- Melt the wax out (at this time, the ceramic shell is fired
to create a mold)
• 7- Pour molten bronze into the mold.
• 8- Break the mold off of the bronze sculpture.
• 9- Remove the channels & smooth & polish the sculpture.
• 10- Patination: create a colored patina on the finished
surface.

3. FINE CRAFT
• Most crafts have roots in the middle ages, when a
craftsman had a trade – potter, glassblower,
woodworker, weaver.
• The word “craft” alludes to expert work done by hand.
• “Craft” and “Art” originally had the same meaning.
During the Renaissance, painting, sculpture and
architecture were elevated to a different level.
– Thus much of art history before the Renaissance includes
craft.

4. Craft vs Art
• Western cultures (Europe & US) have Fine Art and
Fine Craft in separate categories.
– Often the dividing line is function.
• Many other cultures around the world attribute
artistic meaning to craft objects.
– Often fine art objects like sculpture have a spiritual
function.
• There is no definite division between art and
craft, nor should there be.
– Labels are a convenience for talking about art.

5. Traditional Materials of Craft
• Clay
• Glass
• Metal
• Wood
• Fiber

6. Ceramics
• Many kinds of clay
• Terra cotta ∙ Stoneware
• Earthenware ∙ Porcelain
• Greenware – Clay before it is fired
• Bisqueware – Clay that has been kiln-fired once.
 After clay has been fired its chemical composition
changes, it can never be clay again
• Glazeware – Clay that has been glazed,
it can be fired multiple times,
not all ceramics are glazed

7. Ceramics Forming Techniques
• Wheel throwing
– Used in Egypt 6000 years ago
• Slab construction
• Coiling
– Maria Martinez used this method
• Hand-forming or pinching

8. Maria Martinez, Blackware
This type of blackware was only
fired once.
Maria used a red clay.
Before firing she would burnish
the entire pot and then paint on
a design with a slip (liquid clay.)
The dull area is the slip.
The shinier area is the raw clay
that has been burnished.
The ware becomes black by
smothering the flames with dry
manure partway thru the firing.
The smoke reacts with the iron in
the clay to turn it black.

9. Maria Martinez

12. Magdalene Odundo, Vessel Series II
asymmetrical, no.1, 2005, red clay, carbonized and multi-
fired
Bodily terms are used to
describe vessels
Mouth
Neck
Shoulder
Body
Foot

13. Etruscan amphora of the Pontic group,
ca. 540–530 BC. From Vulci

14. Chinese Longquan celadon,
Song Dynasty, 13th century

15. Elaine Coleman
Incised Lizard and Leaf Teapot

16. Hellenistic Tanagra figurine, ca. 320 BCE

17. Earliest known ceramics are the Gravettian
figurines that date to 29,000 to 25,000 BC

18. Chris Antemann, Paradise, 2009, porcelain,
decals, luster, 27 × 17 × 17 inches

21. Islamic tilework
in a mosque,
Iran, 1602-1619

22. 17th century Kütahya tiles in Hall of
the Ablution Fountain, Topkapı
Palace, Istanbul, Turkey

23. Glass
• Made from silica (sand)
• Becomes molten as it is heated and hardens
as it cools
• Can be formed in many ways
– Blown glass
– Fused glass, fired in a kiln
– Various types of molds – pate de verre
• Can be decorated with sandblasting
• Stained glass is made by cutting sheets of
glass into pieces and fitting them together

24. Dale Chihuly

25. Chihuly

26. Dale Chihuly

27. The North Transept windows from
Chartres Cathedral, France, c. 1230

28. The Mucha window in Prague's St. Vitus
Cathedral was designed in the early 1930s

30. Metal
• Types of metals
– Copper - Silver
– Brass - Gold
– Bronze - Steel
– Nickel - Iron
• Can be shaped in many ways
– Casting - Forging
– Cutting - Hammering
– Soldering
• Can be decorated in many ways
– Enameling
– Chasing & Repoussé
– Inlay
– Vermail (a marriage of 2 metals)

31. A blacksmith forging hot iron

32. Handforged silver wine goblets by
Emma-Kate Francis.

33. Modern Chinese cloisonné enamel

34. Detail showing cloisons before
enameling. Wire is soldered to the
piece to separate each color

35. This slide shows a girl meticulously
adding frit to areas, the piece will be
kiln fired, then ground and polished.

36. Lidded copper-body cloisonné enamel vase with a dragon
motif, Probably from Nagoya, it is dated to 1880-1890

37. Chasing and repoussé - high relief

38. The underside of the ginko leaf relief

39. 3 bronze custom butterfly cupboard pulls

40. Chasing tools

41. Wood
• Easy to work with
• Readily available
• Subject to environmental effects (it rots,
distorts, insects)
• Furniture
– The Chair was developed about 2800 yrs ago

42. The Chair of Hetepheres, Egypt,
2575-2551 BCE, wood and gold leaf

43. Chair designed by Henry Van de Velde for
his house "Bloemenwerf" in Brussels

44. LCW (Lounge chair wood), Charles and Ray Eames
1946, molded plywood and rubber

45. Fiber
• Almost endless design possibilities
• Some civilizations highly prize textiles
– Incas
• Construction methods are unique to itself
– Weaving – the general method for all textiles
• Warp – held taut
• Weft – is interwoven through the warp
• Tapestry – a type of weaving wear the warp yarns
are manipulated to form a pattern or design
– The golden age of tapestry was in Europe from late
14th to 17th century, it was the art of choice.

46. The Hunt of the Unicorn, 1475-1500
Netherlands, wool, silk and metallic thread.
Bought for $1million in 1922 and donated to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1937.
• A series of 7 tapestry panels
• Depict a midieval story showing the unicorn
being hunted
• When it lays its head in the lap of a virgin it is
captured and killed, then later restored to life
• A mixture of pagan and Christian symbolism
• Its an allegory to the Passion of Christ

47. The Hunters Enter the Woods

49. Unicorn Is Found at the Fountain

50. The Unicorn is Attacked

51. The Unicorn Defends Herself

52. The Unicorn is Captured by the Maiden

53. The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle

54. The Unicorn
in Captivity

55. In the Sterling Castle, Scotland, there are
replicas of the original Unicorn Tapestries

56. Gee’s Bend Quilts
• A rural community near Selma, Alabama
• Was once the site of cotton plantations
• After the Civil War, the freed slaves took the last name
Pettway and became tenant farmers
• The unique quilting style has been practiced for at least 6
generations
• In 2002 there was an exhibition titled “The Quilts of Gee’s
Bend” featuring 70 masterpieces.
• There are still more than 50 women there who are part of the
Gee’s Bend Quilters Collective
• Their style is reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art
• In early years, the primary influence for the style was the
newspaper and magazine collages used for insulation on the
inside walls of homes

57. Women of Gee's
Bend, Alabama, quilting, 2005

58. Roman Stripes by Deborah Pettway
Young, circa 1963.

59. Drunkard´s Path -- Variation (Snowball)
by Lucy T. Pettway, circa 1950

60. Allie Pettway
Housetop, 1970-1975

61. Annie Mae Young, Work-clothes quilt with
center medallion of strips, 1976; denim,
corduroy, synthetic blend; 108 by 76.5 inches.

62. Jessie T. Pettway, Bars and string-pieced
columns, 1950s; cotton; 95 by 76 inches.

63. Annie E. Pettway, Flying Geese
variation, ca. 1935; cotton, wool; 86 by 71
inches.

64. Blocks & Strips Quilt
by Mary Lee Bendolph, 2002

65. Jade and Lacquer
• Jade – a mineral stone of either nephrite or jadeite
– Color from white to brown to green
– Found mostly in the East, Central Asia & Central America
– Prized in China for 6000 yrs
• Lacquer – made from the sap of a tree that
originally only grew in China, it is brushed over
wood in very thin coats
– Hardens to a smooth glasslike finish
– Demands patience, can take 30 coats to build up a
substantial layer, must fully dry between coats

66. A jade Bi with dragons, Warring States
(403–221 BC)

67. A Chinese Ming Dynasty mother of
pearl lacquer box, 16th century

68. Carved Cinnabar Lacquer Tray with
Blue Magpies and Camellias,
China, Yuan Dynasty, 14th century

69. Blurring the Boundaries between
Art and Craft
• Taking something functional and making it
nonfunctional gives it a whole new meaning
– Voulkos’s Pottery broke this barrier
• Using craft methods to make Fine Art elevates
the notion of craft
– Chicago’s The Dinner Party used traditional
“womens work” in multiple ways to create a fine
art installation.

70. Peter Voulkos,
Noodle, 1996,
stoneware
sculpture

71. Peter Voulkos plates, 1981

72. Peter Voulkos is on the left.

73. The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, 1979
• http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/din
ner_party/place_settings/webtour/
• The table has 39 place settings to honor
influential women in history.
• An additional 999 important women’s names
are written on the tile floor.

75. Mary Wollstonecraft and Sojourner
Truth place settings

76. The Virginia Woolf setting

77. Judy Chicago with her masterpiece.