I Can’t Sleep - Pottery | Gentle Bedtime Reading for Sleep

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Drift off with this calm bedtime reading on pottery, designed to bring peace and relief from insomnia. Benjamin’s soothing voice explores the art and history of shaping clay, from ancient pottery traditions to its role in culture and daily life around the world. This is not whispering or hypnosis—just calm, fact-filled narration to help you relax, reduce stress, and find restful sleep. Learn something new while you let go of the day’s worries. Press play, close your eyes, and allow the steady rhythm of the reading to guide you into dreams. Want More? Request a Topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Ad-Free Episodes: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop Sleep-Friendly Products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Join the Discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/myhGhVUhn7 This content is derived from the Wikipedia article on Pottery, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. Read the full article: Wikipedia – Pottery. Happy sleeping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to a Glassbox media podcast. What if I told you that most of the modern day self-help advice you've been hearing could actually make you worse? The key to a better life isn't about feel-good gimmicks that sound catchy. The Mentally Stronger Podcast gives you access to a licensed therapist who shares science-backed tools that will actually change your life. Hi, I'm Amy Morin, psychotherapist, mental strength trainer, and international best-selling author. In each episode, we cover research-back strategies, like how to stop relying on willpower and start creating habits for lasting change. And the five mental strength-building exercises you can do from your couch. I also speak to world-class experts like Dr. Nicole Kane, who shares how to permanently heal anxiety by addressing the root cause.

With over 200 episodes in our catalog, this podcast is for you if you're ready to crush self-doubt, conquer challenges, become stronger than ever with therapist-approved strategies that can change your life. Listen to Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast, where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled, Pottery. Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high

temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The place where such wares are made by potter is also called a pottery, plural potteries. The definition of pottery used by the ASTM International is all-fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed, except technical, structural, and refractory products. In art history and archaeology, especially of ancient and prehistoric periods, pottery often means vessels only, and sculpted figurings of the same material are called terracottas. Clay as a part of the materials used is required by some definitions of pottery, but this is

dubious. Pottery is one of the oldest human inventions originating before the Neolithic period, with ceramic objects like the Gravedian culture, Venus of Dolny Vestinichic figurine, discovered in the Czech Republic, dating back to 29,000 to 25,000 BC, and pottery vessels that were discovered in Jiangxi, China, which date back to 18,000 BC. Neolithic and pre-Neolithic Pottery artifacts have been found in Joma in Japan, the Russian Var East, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Pottery is made by forming a ceramic, often clay body, into objects of a desired shape, and heating them to high temperatures in a bonfire pit or kiln, and induces reactions that lead to permanent changes, including increasing the strength and rigidity of the object.

Much pottery is purely utilitarian, but much can also be regarded as ceramic art. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing. Clay-based pottery can be divided into three main groups, earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. These require increasingly more specific clay material and increasingly higher firing temperatures. All three are made in glazed and unglazed varieties. for different purposes. All may also be decorated by various techniques. In many examples, the group a piece belongs to is immediately visually apparent.

This is not always the case. The fritware of the Islamic world does not use clay, so technically falls outside these groups. Historic pottery of all these types is often grouped as either fine wares, relatively expensive and well-made, and following the aesthetic taste of the culture concerned, or alternatively coarse, popular folk, or village wares, mostly undecorated or simply so, and often less well-made. Cooking in clay pots became less popular once metal pots became available. Clay remained popular for those dishes that depended on the unique qualities of clay cooking.

main types earthenware the earliest forms of pottery were made from clays that were fired at low temperatures initially in pit fires or in open bonfires they were hand-formed and undecorated earthenware can be fired as low as 600 degrees Celsius and is normally fired below 1200 degrees Celsius because unglazed biscuit earthenware is porous

it has limited utility for the storage of liquids or as tableware. However, earthenware has had a continuous history from the Neolithic period to today. It can be made from a wide variety of clays, some of which fire to a buff, brown or black color, with iron in the constituent minerals resulting in a reddish brown. Reddish-colored varieties are called terracotta, especially when unglazed or used for sculpture. The development of ceramic glaze made impermeable pottery possible, improving the popularity and practicality of pottery vessels. The addition of decoration has evolved throughout its history.

Stoneware. Stoneware is pottery that has been fired in a kiln at a relatively high temperature from about 1,100 degrees Celsius to 1,200 degrees Celsius, and as stronger and non-porous to liquids. The Chinese who developed stoneware very early on classified this together with porcelain as high-fired wares. In contrast, stoneware could only be produced in Europe from the late Middle Ages, as European kilns were less efficient and the right type of clay less common. It remained a specialty of Germany until the Renaissance.

Stoneware is very tough and practical, and much of it has always been utilitarian, for the kitchen or storage rather than for the table. But fine stoneware has been important in China, Japan, and the West, and continues to be made. Many utilitarian types have also come to be appreciated as art. Porcelain. Porcelain is made by heating materials, generally including Kaelin in a kiln,

the temperature is between 1,400 and 1,400 degrees Celsius. This is higher than used for the other types, and achieving these temperatures was a long struggle, as well as realizing what materials were needed. The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainly from vitrification and the formation of the mineral mollite within the body of these high temperatures. Although porcelain was first made in China, the Chinese traditionally do not recognize, it as a distinct category, grouping it with stoneware as high-fired wear, opposed to low-fired earthenware. This confuses the issue of when it was first made. A degree of translucency and

whiteness was achieved by the Tang Dynasty, and considerable quantities were being exported. The modern level of whiteness was not reached until much later in the 14th century. Porcelain was also made in Korea and in Japan from the end of the 16th century after suitable Kaelin was located in those countries. It was not made effectively outside East Asia until the 18th century. Archaeology. A study of pottery can help to provide an insight into past cultures. Fabric analysis used to analyze the fabric of pottery is an important part of archaeology for understanding the archaeological culture of the excavated site by studying the fabric of artifacts such as their usage, source material composition, decorative pattern, color of patterns, etc.

This helps to understand characteristics, sophistication, habits, technology, tools, trade, etc. of the people who made and used the pottery. Carbon dating reveals the age, sites with similar pottery. characteristics have the same culture. The sites which have distinct cultural characteristics, but with some overlap, are indicative of cultural exchange, such as trade or living in vicinity, or continuity of habitation, etc.

Examples are black and redware, redware, southeast is wool culture, and painted grayware culture. The six fabrics of Calibanan is a good example of use of fabric analysis. and identifying a differentiated culture which was earlier thought to be typical Indus Valley civilization, IVC culture. Pottery is durable, and fragments at least often survive long after artifacts made from less durable materials have decayed past recognition. Combined with other evidence, the study of pottery artifacts is helpful in the development of theories

on the organization, economic condition, and the cultural development of the societies that produced or acquired pottery. The study of pottery may also allow inferences to be drawn about a culture's daily life, religion, social relationships, attitudes towards neighbors, attitudes towards their own world, and even the way the culture understood the universe. Chronologies based on pottery are often essential for dating non-literate cultures. and are often of help in the dating of historic cultures as well. Trace element analysis, mostly by neutron activation, allows the sources of clay to be accurately identified

and the thermoluminescence test can be used to provide an estimate of the date of last firing. Examining fired pottery shards from prehistory, scientists learned that during high-temperature firing, iron materials in clay record the exact state of the earth's magnetic field at that exact moment. Source material. Fabric analysis The clay body is also called the paste or the fabric, which consists of two things. The clay matrix composed of grains of less than 0.02 millimeters grains,

which can be seen using the high-powered microscopes or a scanning electron microscope, S-C-M. and the clay inclusions, which are larger grains of clay, and could be seen with the naked eye or a low-power binocular microscope. For geologists, fabric analysis means spatial arrangement of minerals in a rock. For archaeologists, the fabric analysis of pottery entails the study of clay matrix and inclusions in the clay body, as well as the firing temperature and conditions. analysis is done to examine the following three in detail how pottery was made e.g. material design such as shape and style etc. Its decorations such as patterns, colors of patterns,

slipped, glazing, or unslipped decoration. Evidence of type of use. The six fabrics of Calabangan is a good example of fabric analysis. Clay bodies and mineral contents. Body or clay body is a term for the main pottery form of a piece underneath any glaze or decoration. The main ingredient of the body is clay. There are several materials that are referred to as clay.

The properties which make them different include plasticity, the malleability of the body, the extent to which they will absorb water after firing, and shrinkage, the extent of reduction in size of a body as water is removed. Different clay bodies also differ in the way in which they respond when fired in the kiln. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing. Prior to some shaping processes, clay must be prepared. Each of these different clays is composed of different types and amounts of minerals

that determine the characteristics of resulting pottery. There can be regional variations in the properties of raw materials used for the production of pottery, and these can lead to wares that are unique in character to a locality. It is common for clays and other materials to be mixed to produce clay bodies suited to specific purposes. A common component of clay bodies is the mineral calenite. Other minerals in the clay, such as feldspar, act as fluxes which lower the vitrification temperature, of bodies. Following is a list of different types of clay used for pottery. Kaelin is sometimes referred to as china clay because it was first used in China, used for porcelain. Ball clay, an extremely

plastic, fine-grained sedimentary clay, which may contain some organic matter. Small amounts can be added to porcelain bodies to increase plasticity. Fire clay. A clay having a slightly lower percentage of fluxes than Kalin, but usually quite plastic. It is a highly heat-resistant form of clay, which can be combined with other clays to increase the firing temperature and may be used as an ingredient to make stoneware-type bodies.

Stoneware clay. Suitable for creating stoneware. Has many of the characteristics between fire clay and ball clay, having finer grain like ball clay, but is more heat-resistant like fireclays. Common red clay and shale clay have vegetable and ferric oxide impurities, which make them useful for bricks, but are generally unsatisfactory for pottery except under special conditions of a particular deposit. Bentonite

An extremely plastic clay which can be added in small quantities to short clay to increase the plasticity. Production of pottery. Production of pottery includes the following three stages. Making clay body, i.e. paste or putty. Shaping and molding, firing and baking, decorating such as glazing, slipping, painting, etc. Shaping methods. Pottery can be shaped by a range of methods that include hand-building.

This is the earliest forming method, whereas can be constructed by hand. hand from coils of clay, combining flat slabs of clay or pinching solid balls of clay or some combination of these. Parts of hand-built vessels are often joined together with the aid of slip and aqueous suspension of clay body and water. A clay body can be decorated before or after firing. Prior to some shaping processes, clay must be prepared, such as tablewares, although some studio potters find handbuilding more conducive to create one-of-a-kind works of art. The potter's wheel. In a process called throwing, coming from the old English word thrown, which means to twist or turn, a ball of clay is placed in the center of a turntable called the wheelhead,

which the potter rotates with a stick with foot power or with a variable speed electric motor. During the process of throwing, the wheel rotates while the solid ball of soft clay is pressed, squeezed and pulled gently upwards and outwards into a hollow shape. The first step of pressing the rough ball of clay downward and inward into perfect rotational symmetry is called centering the clay, a most important skill to master before the next steps, opening, making a centered hollow into the solid ball of clay, flooring, making the flat or rounded bottom inside the pot, throwing or pulling, drawing up and shaping the walls to an even thickness, and trimming and turning, removing excess clay to refine the shape or to create a foot. Considerable skill and experience are required to

throw pots of an acceptable standard, and while the wear may have high artistic merit, the reproducibility of the method is poor. Because of its inherent limitations, throwing can only be used to create wares with radial symmetry on a vertical axis. These can then be altered by impressing, bulging, carving, fluting, and incising. In addition to the potter's hands, these techniques can use tools, including paddles, anvils, and ribs, and those specifically for cutting or piercing such as knives,

fluting tools, needle tools, and wires. Thrown pieces can be further modified by the attachment of handles, lids, feet, and spouts. Granulate pressing. As the name suggests, this is the operating of shaping pottery by pressing a clay in a semi-dry granulated condition in a mold. The clay is pressed into the mold by a porous dye through which water is pumped at high pressure. The granulated clay is prepared by sprayers. drying to produce a fine and free-flowing material, having a moisture content of between about

5% and 6%. Granulet pressing, also known as dust pressing, is widely used in the manufacture of ceramic tiles and increasingly of plates. Injection molding. This is a shape-forming process adapted for the tableware industry for the method long established for the forming of thermoplastic and some metal components. It has been called porcelain injection molding or PIM. Suited to the mass production of complex-shaped articles, one significant advantage of the technique is that it allows the production of a cup,

including the handle in a single process, and thereby eliminates the handle-fixing operation and produces a stronger bond between cup and handle. The feed to the mold dye is a mix of a, approximately 50 to 60% unfired body in powder form, together with 40 to 50% organic additives composed of binders, lubricants, and plasticizers. The technique is not as widely used as other shaping methods. Jiggering and jullying. These operations are carried out on the potter's wheel and allow the time taken to bring wares to a standardized form to be reduced. Jiggering is the operation of bringing a

shaped tool into contact with a plastic clay of a piece under construction, the piece itself being set on a rotating plaster mold on the wheel. The jigger tool shapes one face while the mold shapes the other. Jiggering is used only in the production of flatwares such as plates, but a similar operation, jolying, is used in the production of hollow wares such as cups. Jiggering and joling have been used in the production of pottery since at least the 18th century. In large-scale factory production, jiggering and joling are usually automated, which allows the operations to be carried out by semi-skilled labor.