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Polish pottery’s popularity has grown in the 2000’s.  Advertising has increased as well, introducing some of us to unfamiliar terms.  Among the confusion, pottery and stoneware lead the pact.  Many people wonder is pottery the same as stoneware?  Is it just a different word with the same meaning?  Is one more descriptive than the other?  So I have done a little research to help clarify it. 

In a nutshell, pottery is a general term for any ceramic ware item that a potter has created.  This can include everything from mugs, plates, bowls and other practical items, or it can include decorative pieces such as artwork, home accents, or cabinetry doorknobs.  Stoneware, on the other hand, refers to a man made stone.  It is defined as a material made by man.   So can pottery be stoneware or stoneware be pottery?  Let’s define these terms more closely.  

Pottery indeed can be made from stoneware.  Also, pottery can be made from earthenware, or porcelain.  Earthenware is another common ceramic material, however Boleslawiec  polish pottery does not use it.  Porcelain is another common material used to make pottery.  A potter works in a potterie firing the clay at very high temperatures to harden it solid.  Pottery is one of the oldest art forms and also one of the oldest technologies humans have made.  Historically pottery was decorated by hand, hence making artwork.  In Boleslawiec Poland, the decorations they make have been influenced by local customs and traditions and things around them.  For example, one of the most popular designs is the peacock feather.  This has become a symbol of Polish Pottery for over one hundred years.   

Stoneware is an One aspect of stoneware that is different than earthenware is that it is impervious to liquids (it’s waterproof!).  There is also porcelain.  Porcelain is arguably a type of stoneware.  The usual difference is that porcelain is usually brighter than stoneware, and it is also vitreous.  Stoneware is semi-vitreous.

So you may be asking what is ceramic ware then?  Easy!  Ceramic is a solid that is not made of a metallic material, that is not organic (never has lived), that was made by heating and cooling.  So if you think about it, pottery is ceramic, and so is glass.  But nowadays technologies have evolved to help us invent new ceramic materials that are used in semiconductors and many other applications.

To put it all together, Polish pottery from Boleslawiec Poland is a type of stoneware pottery.  It’s made of ceramic clay, then is fired up to harden, then painted and glazed.  The clay from the Boleslawiec region is very specific and does not exist anywhere else in the world.  That’s what makes your pottery so prized along with the hand painted designs, it’s truly an art piece.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 12:47 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.