Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-11-05
Cincinnati,s New Craze.
ART POTTERY, AND WHAT SHE Is DOING IN TIA

LINE.
Four years ago Cincinnati was heart and sou
devoted to wood carvings when that degener-
ated she took to music; simultaneously with
her musical excitement there was engendefeda
craze for ceramics. The music has gone gloam-
ng. and the number of fair workers in Limoges
faience is growing beautifully less with the pas
sage Of each season. But the players have been
succeeded by genuine laborers, and pottery de-
coration has, with some, become an earnest
pursuit instead of mere pastime. The Times
Star of that city says:
The establishment of an art pottery by Mrs.
Maria II. Nichols renders it possible to make a
business Of what has heretofore been little else
than an amusement. There are two sides to
the pottery question, as one may call it, there
are to every other question. There is the spirit
ual and the material. SO to speak. The ladies
attend to the former and the hard-handed
Englishmen to the latter. Culture does the
decoration and labor makes the bodies.
great deal has been written about the art
part OF the business, but just as much can be
written about the mechanical part There are
larger establishments in Cincinnati than Mrs.
Nichols having more Of the air Of thriving
mandatory than hers, but the general arrange
ments of all potterles are the same, and yellow
ware, Rockingham ware, G. G. and white granite
are produced very much after the same fashion
in all pOtteries.
1t will no doubt interest the general reader to
be told in few words how crOCkery ware is
made. 1t is quite long process, and success
full potter is fashioned only by the hand of long
experience. Plotting taught in twenty five
lessons" would be a more ridiculous announce
ment than the similar one sometimes made to
catch lazy wOuld-be lnguists. Plotting taught
In twenty five years. would sound little more
like it, and there are gentlemen connected with
the Cincinnati concerns that have been fully
that long at the business. mere outline of
the mOdus Operandi must therefore suffice for
the present occasion.
The clays used here are obtained in the United
States and a great many of them within the
boundaries of this state. 1t must be prepared
by very elaborate and not very interesting
process. Machinery generally does all this in
mOdern-built pOtteries.
When the clay has been brought to proper
state of preparation, the potter takes lump of
it and throws itupon revolving wheel before
him. The clay is spun around with great
rapidity, and the potter, wetting his hands,
presses his fingers into the mass and allows it to
slip through the hands while he shapes it into
the desirable form. 1t is wonderful how quickly
beautiful vase or other vessel is evolved from
the shapeless lump of mud by this simple pro-
cess. All articles of perfectly circular form
can be thus thrown, but it not infrequently hap.
pens that strong plaster molds take the place Of
the potters hands, and this is almost always the
case where slight relief decoration is required
Plates and open dishes are made upon mold,
Dy the clay being thrown upon a figure that
gives it its interior shape, and then revolyed
upon lathe and its exterior shape made by a
simple iron instrument something likea knife
This apparatus is very similar to an ordinary
wOOd-turning lathe.
The ware thus made is put upon shelves in
drying-rOOm, and when sufficiently deprived of
its moisture is ready for the biscuit kiln. The
kiln is little more than an inverted funnel built
OF brick. At the base is place for supplying
the fuel. which is done pretty much as one puts
coal into common furnace. The ware is not
subjected to immediate contact with the fire,
but is encased in queer sort of boxes called seq
gars. These are made of fire clay and are piled
the one upon the other and SO tightly cementef
that not the least particle of smoke can reach
their contents. The workmen carry these seq
gars into the kiln and pile them up in long
rows until the receptacle is full. Then the kiln
is sealed up with doors and the cracks stopped
with clay, and the burning begun. For fifty odd
hours the heat is kept up to terrible pitch of
intensity, after which the kiln is drawn-by
which it is meant the ware is removed and the
seggars opened. Now the ware is ready for the
glaze, or for the decoration, i'm certain kinds,
and after it has received this, it is retired, and
brought forth the finished work that every lover
OF the beautiful in form and color SO much ad-
mireS.
All this is the material part of the art,
the part done by the wOrkmen. The artistic
part is where the aesthetic begins and the part
performed so skillfuly and gracefully by many
of our ladies'.