page_title: Ceramic art
section_title: Mexican ceramics
hierarchical_section_title: Ceramic art / History / The Americas / Mexican ceramics
caption_attribution_description: English: Talavera serving tray from the Uriarte workshop in Puebla Mexico designed by Marcela Lobo on display at the Museum of Artes Populares in Mexico City
context_page_description: Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. While some ceramics are considered fine art, as pottery or sculpture, most are considered to be decorative, industrial or applied art objects. Ceramics may also be considered artefacts in archaeology. Ceramic art can be made by one person or by a group of people. In a pottery or ceramic factory, a group of people design, manufacture and decorate the art ware. Products from a pottery are sometimes referred to as "art pottery". In a one-person pottery studio, ceramists or potters produce studio pottery.
  The word "ceramics" comes from the Greek keramikos, meaning "pottery", which in turn comes from keramos meaning "potter's clay". Most traditional ceramic products were made from clay, shaped and subjected to heat, and tableware and decorative ceramics are generally still made this way. In modern ceramic engineering usage, ceramics is the art and science of making objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials by the action of heat.
context_section_description: Mexican ceramics are an ancient tradition. Precolumbian potters built up their wares with pinching, coiling, or hammer-an-anvil methods and, instead of using glaze, burnished their pots.
caption: Talavera serving tray
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