Broken: Father Knows Best

Chapter 1

an eBook by Dave Bessey

You are a work of Art!

Introduction

Each of us comes into the world the same way, we come in head first and sometimes feet first. There are occasions where we come through surgery.  But long before we are born we were conceived. The miracle of life, spend nine or so months in the womb and then  bammo! We are born. It happened to me and you. You are reading this eBook and you are unique. Your genetical make-up is you, but even more than the physical side, you have a soul and spirit. Regardless what the world system of devil says about you and mankind our creator shaped and molded you in the womb and you are a special work of creative art.

Anonymous quote

“Yahweh does not choose to enter the process of development after a point of viability or birth. We see in scripture that God cherishes the unborn life, is attentive to every detail of development, and displays His glory in that masterful work. Isaiah declares that, as the Lord has created all things, he “formed you from the womb” (Is. 44:24). God sets Jeremiah apart before he “formed [him] in the womb” (Jer. 1:5). Job trusts in the God who made him in his mother’s womb (Job. 31:15). In Psalm 139, we have exalted language as David reflects on God’s handiwork:

Psalms‬ ‭139‬:‭13‬-‭16‬ ‭WEBUS‬‬

“For you formed and molded me in my inner most being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.”Psalms‬ ‭139‬:‭13‬-‭16‬ ‭WEBUS‬‬”

Thus we are a precious work of God’s hands like a potter shaping and molding clay.

Isaiah‬ ‭64‬:‭8‬ ‭WEBUS‬‬

“But now, Yahweh, you are our Father. We are the clay and you our potter. We all are the work of your hand.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭64‬:‭8‬ ‭WEBUS‬‬

He shaped us in the womb,

but did not stop there. He continues to mold us into His image.

My question: as we start this journey,  are we really counting the cost of picking up our cross and obeying Christ in following Him daily? The molding process can be painful. Oh there is the drying on the shelf, the baking in the furnace. If you have some defects you crushed to powder again. Your experiences in life were never intended to be easy, only easier when we trust God.   The powder becomes clay as water is re-added and then we are reshaped again. This is life and how we mature in character, wisdom and righteousness. So welcome again to the journey called, “Broken: Father Knows Best”. He made us!

Reference:

Broken-Potter Procedures

Introduction; Types, Procedures, and Techniques; East Asia; Pre-Columbian Americas; Western Pottery-

Introduction

I Pottery, clay that is chemically altered and permanently hardened by firing in a kiln. The nature and type of pottery, or ceramics (Greek keramos, “potter's clay”), is determined by the composition of the clay and the way it is prepared; the temperature at which it is fired; and the glazes used.

II Types, Procedures, and Techniques

Earthenware is porous pottery, usually fired at the lowest kiln temperatures (900°-1200° C/1652°-2192° F). Depending on the clay used, it turns a buff, red, brown, or black color when fired. To be made waterproof, it must be glazed. Nearly all ancient, medieval, Middle Eastern, and European painted ceramics are earthenware, as is a great deal of contemporary household dinnerware. Stoneware—water-resistant and much more durable—is fired at temperatures of 1200°-1280° C (2191°-2336° F). The clay turns white, buff, gray, or red and is glazed for aesthetic reasons. (Pottery fired at about 1200° C/2192° F is sometimes called middle-fire ware; its earthenware or stoneware traits vary from clay to clay.) Stoneware was made by the Chinese in antiquity and became known in northern Europe after the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century). Porcelain is made from kaolin, a clay formed from decomposed granite. Kaolin is a white primary clay—that is, a clay found in the earth in the place where it was formed and not transported there by rivers; secondary clays, borne by rivers to the site of deposit, contain impurities that give them various colors. Porcelain is fired at 1280°-1400° C (2336°-2552° F); it is white and often translucent. Porcelaneous ware was first made in China, hence its common name china. Chinese porcelain is less vitrified (and therefore softer) than its modern European counterpart, which was developed in Germany in the early 18th century. European imitations of Chinese porcelain are also made; called soft-paste or frit porcelains, they are fired at about 1100° C (about 2012° F). In the mid-18th century, English potters invented bone china, a somewhat harder ware that gained whiteness, translucency, and stability through the inclusion of calcium phosphate in the form of calcined (fired, chemically altered) ox bones.

III Preparing and Shaping the Clay

The potter can remove some of the coarse foreign matter natural to secondary clays, but coarse matter can also be used in varying quantities to achieve particular effects. A certain amount of coarse grain in the clay helps the vessel retain its shape in firing, and potters using fine-grained clays often “temper” the clay by adding coarser materials such as sand, fine stones, ground shells, or grog (fired and pulverized clay) before kneading the clay into a workable condition. The plasticity of clay allows pottery to be shaped in several traditional ways. The clay can be flattened and then shaped by being pressed against the inside or outside of a mold—a stone or basket, or a clay or plaster form. Liquid clay can be poured into plaster molds. A pot can be coil built: Clay is rolled between the palms of the hands and extended into long coils, a coil is formed into a ring, and the pot is built up by superimposing rings. Also, a ball of clay can be pinched into the desired shape. The most sophisticated pottery-making technique is wheel throwing.

The potter's wheel, invented in the 4th millennium bc, is a flat disk that revolves horizontally on a pivot. Both hands—one on the inside and the other on the outside of the clay—are free to shape the pot upward from a ball of clay that is thrown and centered on the rotating wheel head. Some wheels are set in motion by a stick that fits into a notch in the wheel (often activated by an assistant); called a handwheel, this is the classical wheel of Japanese potters. In 16th-century Europe, with the addition of a flywheel separate from the wheel head and mounted in a frame, the potter could control the wheel by kicking the flywheel. A kick bar, or foot treadle, was added in the 19th century. In the 20th century the electric wheel with a variable-speed motor allowed greater and better regulated rotating speed.

IV. Drying and Firing

To fire without breaking, the clay must first be air dried. If the clay is thoroughly dry, porous and relatively soft, the pottery can be baked directly in an open fire at temperatures of 650°-750° C (1202°-1382° F); primitive pottery is still made in this way. The first kilns were used in the 6th millennium bc. Wood fuels—and, later, coal, gas, and electricity—have always required careful control to produce the desired effect in hardening the clay into earthenware or stoneware. Various effects are achieved by oxidizing the flames (giving them adequate ventilation, to produce a great flame) or by reducing the oxygen through partially obstructing the entrance of air into the kiln. For example, a clay high in iron will typically burn red in an oxidizing fire, whereas in a reducing fire it will turn gray or black; chemically, in reduction firing the clay's red iron oxide (FeO2, or with two molecules, Fe2O4) is converted to black iron oxide (Fe 2O3) as the pot gives up an atom of oxygen to the oxygen-starved fire.

V. Decoration

A pot can be decorated before or after firing. When the clay is partially dry and somewhat stiffened (“leather hard”), bits of clay can be pressed into the pot; the body of the vessel can be incised, stamped, or pressed with lines and other patterns; or clay can be cut out and the body pierced. The vessel walls can be smoothed by burnishing, or polishing, so that rough particles are driven inward and the clay particles are aligned in such a way that the vessel surface is shiny and smooth. (Some clays can be polished after firing.) Slip (liquefied clay strained of coarse particles) may be used: The bone-dry (completely dry) or partially dry pot can be dipped into slip of creamy consistency (to which color is sometimes added); or the slip can be brushed on or trailed on with a spouted can or a syringe. Designs can be drawn with a pointed tool that scratches through the slip to reveal the body, a technique known as sgraffito.

VI. Glazes

Historically, unglazed pottery has always been more common than glazed pottery. Glaze is a form of glass, consisting basically of glass-forming minerals (silica or boron) combined with stiffeners (such as clay and fluxes) and melting agents (such as lead or soda). In raw form, glaze can be applied either to the unfired pot or after an initial unglazed, or biscuit, firing. The pot is then glaze fired; the glaze ingredients must melt and become glasslike at a temperature that is compatible to that required for the clay. Many kinds of glazes are used. Some heighten the color of the body; others mask it. Alkaline glazes, popular in the Middle East, are shiny and frequently transparent. These glazes are composed mostly of silica (such as sand) and a form of soda (such as nitre). Lead glazes are transparent, with traditional types made of sand fused with sulfide or oxide of lead. These glazes were used on earthenware by Roman, Chinese, and medieval European potters and are still used on European earthenware. Tin glazes, opaque and white, were introduced by medieval Islamic potters and were used for Spanish lusterware, Italian majolica, and European faience and delftware. Eventually the Chinese and Japanese made such glazes for the European market.

Metal oxides give color to glazes. Copper will make a lead glaze turn green and an alkaline glaze turquoise; a reduction kiln will cause the copper to turn red. Iron can produce yellow, brown, gray-green, blue, or, with certain minerals, red. Feldspars (natural rocks of aluminosilicates) are used in stoneware and porcelain glazes because they fuse only at high temperatures. The effects of specific glazes on certain clay bodies depend both on the composition of each and on the potter's control of the glaze kiln.

VII. Underglaze and Overglaze Decoration

Pottery can also be painted before and after firing. In Neolithic times, ochers and other earth pigments were used on unglazed ware. Metal oxides used in or under glazes require somewhat higher temperatures in order to fix the colors to the glaze or body—they include copper green, cobalt blue, manganese purple, and antimony yellow. If enamels (fine-ground pigments applied over a fired glaze) are used, the pot must be refired in a muffle (covered, indirect-flame) kiln at low temperatures to fuse the enamel and glaze. Decals and transfer prints (designs printed on paper with oxides and, while wet, transferred to the pot, the paper burning away in the firing) are often used to decorate commercially manufactured pottery. In the 18th century the print plate was hand engraved, but now lithography and photography are used. Potters' marks have been used to identify ware in China since the 15th century, and in Europe since the 18th century, and famous pottery marks have always been easily forged. Greek potters and painters signed their work, as is true of a few Islamic potters and most 20th-century potters.

VIII. Western Pottery

The historical styles of Western pottery include those of the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean as well as those of the medieval Muslim world and medieval and modern Europe.

 A. Ancient Middle East

The earliest Middle Eastern pottery yet discovered comes from Çatal Hüyük, in Anatolia, and dates from 6500 bc. In addition to terra-cotta cult statues and painted clay statuettes, the ware from this site (near modern Çumra, Turkey) includes pieces painted in red ocher on a body covered with cream slip. Other pottery was monochromatic—buff, light gray, beige, or brick red. It was coil built and paddled, then burnished; some pots were incised with simple horizontal lines. The ware was fired either in a bread oven or in a closed kiln with a separate firing chamber. Other Neolithic pottery from the Middle East, primarily from Syria, had impressed designs or was combed with the edge of a cardium shell. See Iranian Art and Architecture; Mesopotamian Art and Architecture.

A 1 Persia and Mesopotamia

The earliest painted ceramics of northern Mesopotamia date from just before the 5th millennium bc. At Sāmarrā’, stylized human and animal figures were painted with colors ranging from red to brown and black on a buff background. Shortly thereafter, polychrome pottery of higher quality was made at Tell Halaf, where potters had learned more thorough control of their kilns.

At about the same time, Persian potters painted geometric designs on pots covered with light-colored slip. By the 4th millennium the potter's wheel was in use. People from the north migrated to Persia and introduced red and gray monochromatic pottery. At the height of the Ubaid period (4th millennium bc) a pottery industry around Sūsa produced many drinking vessels and bowls from refined clay. Coated with a greenish-yellow slip, they were decorated in a free style with painted geometric shapes, plants, birds, other animals, and stick-figure people.

Glazed pottery began to be produced about 1500 bc. The finest Mesopotamian ceramic work was not in domestic pottery, but rather in glazed brickwork used for architectural ornamentation. The tradition began in the 3rd millennium at Erech (Uruk), where columns and niches were covered with a geometric mosaic of colored nail-like ceramic cones. In Babylonia during the Kassite rule (mid-2nd millennium bc), unglazed terra-cotta was used to face temples and palaces. During the 8th century bc, at Khorsabad, the capital of the Assyrian monarch Sargon II, a temple entrance was decorated with molded glazed brickwork depicting animals in procession. This tradition reached its climax in Babylon in the 6th century bc. There the famous processional way was lined with glazed bricks on which more than 700 bulls, dragons, and lions were carved and molded, then glazed in a palette ranging from white to yellow to brownish-black against a blue or greenish-blue ground. The facade of the royal throne room was decorated with lions on walls and with columns crowned and surrounded by stylized palmettos and lotus buds.

 B. Egypt

In the 5th millennium bc Egyptian potters made graceful, thin, dark, highly polished ware with subtle cord decoration. The painted ware of the 4th millennium, with geometric and animal figures on red, brown, and buff bodies, was not of the same high standard. Dynastic Egypt was famous for its faience (to be distinguished from the later European ceramics of that name). First made about 2000 bc, it is characterized by a dark green or blue glaze over a body high in powdered quartz, somewhat closer to glass than to true ceramics. Egyptian artisans made faience beads and jewelry, elegant cups, scarabs, and ushabti (small servant figures buried with the dead).

 C. The Mediterranean, Greece, and Rome

Pottery from the islands of the Mediterranean and Aegean during the late Bronze Age (1500-1050 bc) and early Iron Age (1050-750 bc), especially from Crete (Kríti) and Cyprus, showed great imagination on the part of the artists, who painted bichrome ware with geometric, abstract, and figurative designs. At times, pottery shapes were fanciful and seemingly nonfunctional; at other times, in vessels used for ointments and cosmetics, the shapes were quite delicate. See Aegean Civilization; Greek Art and Architecture; Roman Art and Architecture.

 D. Greece

The fashioning and painting of ceramics was a major art in classical Greece. Native clay was shaped easily on the wheel, and each distinct form had a name and a specific function in Greek society and ceremonial: The amphora was a tall, two-handled storage vessel for wine, corn, oil, or honey; the hydria, a three-handled water jug; the lecythus, an oil flask with a long, narrow neck, for funeral offerings; the cylix, a double-handled drinking cup on a foot; the oenochoe, a wine jug with a pinched lip; the crater, a large bowl for mixing wine and water. Undecorated black pottery was used throughout Greek and Hellenistic times, the forms being related either to those of decorated pottery or to those of metalwork. Both styles influenced Roman ceramics.

Even in the Bronze Age, the Greeks took advantage of oxidizing and reducing kilns to produce a shiny black slip on a cream, brownish, or orange-buff body, the shade depending on the type of clay. At first, decorative designs were abstract. By the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 bc), however, stylized forms from nature appeared. By the Late Bronze Age, plants, sea creatures, and fanciful animals were painted on pots of well-conceived shape by the Mycenaeans, who were initially influenced by Cretan potters. Athenian geometric style replaced the Mycenaean about 1000 bc and declined by the 6th century bc. Large craters in the Geometric style, with bands of ornament, warriors, and processional figures laid out in horizontal registers, were found at the Dipylon cemetery of Athens; they date from about 750 bc.

Attic potters introduced black-figure ware in the early 6th century. Painted black forms adorned the polished red clay ground, with detail rendered by incising through the black. White and reddish-purple were added for skin and garments. Depictions of processions and chariots continued; animals and hybrid beasts were also shown (particularly in the Orientalizing period, roughly 700 to 500 bc), at times surrounded by geometric or vegetal motifs. Such decoration was always well integrated with the vessel shapes, and the iconography of Greek mythology is clear. Beginning in the 6th century, the decoration emphasized the human figure far more than animals. Favorite themes included people and gods at work, battle, and banquet; musicians; weddings and other ceremonies; and women at play or dressing. In some cases, events or heroes were labeled. Mythological and literary scenes became more frequent. Potters' and painters' names and styles have been identified, even when they did not sign their works.

Red-figure pottery was invented about 530 bc, becoming especially popular between 510 and 430. The background was painted black, and the figures were left in reserve on the red-brown clay surface; details on the figures were painted in black, which allowed the artist greater freedom in drawing. The paint could also be diluted for modulating the color. Secondary colors of red and white were used less; gold sometimes was added for details of metal and jewelry. Anatomy was rendered more realistically, and after 480, so were nuances of gesture and expression. Although Athens and Corinth were centers for red-figure pottery, the style also spread to the Greek islands. By the 4th century bc, however, it declined in quality. Another Greek style featured outline drawing on a white ground, with added colors imitating monumental painting; these vessels, however, were impractical for domestic use.

"Pottery," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2009

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