Craft Media, Sculpture, and Architecture

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering ceramics, glass, sculpture, woodworking, textiles, and architecture from the lecture notes.

Firing

The process of solidifying clay in a kiln.

Earthenware

The most common type of ceramic.

Ceramics

The art of making objects from clays.

Throwing

The technique of shaping clay on a rapidly turning wheel, producing rounded shapes.

Glaze

A coating with a chemical makeup similar to glass that vitrifies during firing, differing from slip.

Stoneware

The preferred medium of today's ceramists and potters because of its strength and workability.

Porcelain

A ceramic material made from ground granite.

Cames

Strips of lead between which colored pieces of glass are embedded to produce stained glass windows.

Kinetic sculpture

Sculpture that incorporates movement, pioneered by Alexander Calder.

Modeling

An additive sculptural process for which clay is the best-used material.

Armature

A rigid inner support used to prevent sagging in plaster works like Naked Balzac.

Carving

A subtractive sculptural method that is considered the most challenging because it is a one-way process where errors are difficult to correct.

Casting

A sculptural method also known as the substitution process.

High-relief sculpture

A sculpture featuring modeled forms that significantly project from the surrounding surface, such as Robert Longo's Corporate Wars: Walls of Influence.

Low-relief sculpture

Also called bas-relief, a sculpture where forms project only slightly from the background plane, typically seen on a coin.

Freestanding sculpture

Sculpture meant to be viewed from all sides, whose features and impressions change according to the position of the viewer.

Site-specific art

Art designed for a specific location, exemplified by Richard Serra's Tilted Arc.

Assemblage

A sculpture created from found, discarded, or familiar objects.

Installation

An art medium that transforms an entire space into an artwork.

Mixed media

A work of art made from more than one material.

Marquetry

A woodworking technique in which multiple small pieces of wood in different colors and textures are laid down in a design with no bounding wall between them.

Nest Chair

A curved furniture work crafted by Nina Bruun by flexing strips of birch wood, utilizing the property that wood bends when wet.

Quilt making

A textile craft in which patterns are created by sewing together pieces of fabric, continuing traditions such as African-American quilts like Jessie Pettway's Bars and String-Piece Columns.

Embroidery

A technique in which artists stitch decorative colored threads into and over a base of woven fabric.

Loom

A device on which fibers are held in place during weaving.

Structure

The architectural term used to discuss how a building stands up.

Dry masonry

A building technique using stones fitted together without mortar, as seen in Great Zimbabwe.

Pont du Gard

A Roman stone structure functioning as both a bridge and an aqueduct that uses arches and arcades to support the weight of three levels.

Dressed stone

Stones that are cut or shaped before being used in masonry construction.

Vault

A curving masonry roof or ceiling based on the form of the arch.

Dome

A hemispherical vault built atop a circular or polygonal base.

Pointed arch

A medieval structural innovation that resulted in the wide aisles and high vaulted ceilings of Notre-Dame de Chartres.

Cast-iron construction

A structural method used with glass in Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace to create large, flexible interior spaces; its primary drawback is that it is not heat and fire resistant.

Steel frame

A skeletal structure innovation that made the skyscraper possible, supporting buildings like Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building.

Cantilever

An architectural projection used by Frank Lloyd Wright in Fallingwater (Edgar Kaufmann Residence) to echo the rock ledges of the surrounding landscape.