Clay Vocabulary
This is a thin, flat piece of clay.
What is a slab?
The shiny, colorful, glassy surface that covers many finished ceramics.
What is glaze?
This is what many homes and buildings are made of all over St. Louis, thanks to its rich, red clay deposits.
What is a brick?
What is slip?
This is the tool you use to put glaze onto your pottery.
Paintbrush
This is the natural feature that deposited clay around St. Louis over many, MANY millennia.
What is the Mississippi River?
When clay is at this state of dryness, it is very strong and ready to be carved.
What is leather-hard?
This is the one place you cannot ever put glaze on your ceramics.
What is the bottom?
This is the name of the large earthen mounds just east of St. Louis, created by the Native American civilization called the Mississippian culture.
What is Cahokia?
This is what clay is called after the first time it is fired in the kiln.
What is bisque, or bisqueware?
This would give you totally unpredictable results and might not look good.
What is mixing glazes on top of each other?
This is the name of the Native American people who live in the St. Louis area and also traditionally create ceramics.
Who are the Osage?
This is what you do to clay to press out any air bubbles.
What is wedging?
If you wanted a green glaze, but you only had yellow and blue glazes, what could you do to get a green glaze?
Go to the store and buy a green glaze!
Correctly identify at least 3 ceramic objects that people use in daily life... NOT COUNTING cups, bowls, and plates!)
(Answers may vary: containers, plumbing, sinks, toilets, bath tubs, flower pots, knife handles, lamps, candle sticks, brakes, jewelry boxes, tiles, bricks, plumbing, roofing...)