Pottery

Pottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. It also refers to a group of materials that includes earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries.Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high temperatures in a kiln to induce reactions that lead to permanent changes, including increasing their strength and hardening and setting their shape. There are wide regional variations in the properties of clays used by potters and this often helps to produce wares that are unique in character to a locality. It is common for clays and other minerals to be mixed to produce clay bodies suited to specific purposes; for example, a clay body that remains slightly porous after firing is often used for making earthenware or terra cotta flower-pots.

Depending on shaping method, there are a number of stages in the drying process of clay ware. Some processes do not require drying before firing. Leather-hard refers to the stage when the clay object is approximately 75-85% dry. Trimming and handle attachment occurs at the leather-hard state. A clay object is said to be "bone-dry" when it reaches a moisture content of near 0%. Unfired objects are often termed "greenware".

Metal Working

Metalworking is the craft and practice of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large scale structures. The term covers a wide range of work from large ships, bridges and oil refineries to delicate jewelery. It therefore includes a correspondingly wide range of skills and the use of many different types of metalworking processes and their related tools.

Metalworking is an art, hobby, industry, and trade. It relates to metallurgy, a science, jewelery making, an art-and-craft, and as a trade and industry with ancient roots spanning all cultures and civilizations. Metalworking had its beginnings millennia in the past. At some imprecise point in the distant past humankind discovered that certain rocks now called ores could be smelted, producing metal. Further, they discovered that the metal product was malleable and ductile and thus able to be formed into various tools, adornments and put to other practical uses. Humans over the millennia learned to work raw metals into objects of art, adornment, practicality, trade, and engineering.

Wood Working

Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood.Along with stone, mud, and animal parts, wood was certainly one of the first materials worked by primitive human beings. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood. Indeed, the development of civilization was closely tied to the development of increasingly greater degrees of skill in working these materials.
Historically, woodworkers relied upon the woods native to their region, until transportation and trade innovations made more exotic woods available to the craftsman. Woods can be sorted into three basic types, Hardwoods, typified by tight grain and often derived from deciduous trees, softwoods, typically from evergreen trees, and man-made materials, such as plywood and MDF.

Handicrafts

Handicraft, also known as craftwork or simply craft, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or using only simple tools. Usually the term is applied to traditional means of making goods. The individual artisanship of the items is a paramount criterion, such items often have cultural and/or religious significance. Items made by mass production or machines are not handicrafts.

Usually, what distinguishes the term handicraft from the frequently used category arts and crafts is a matter of intent: handicraft items are intended to be used, worn, et cetera, having a purpose beyond simple decoration. Handicrafts are generally considered more traditional work, created as a necessary part of daily life, while arts and crafts implies more of a hobby pursuit and a demonstration/perfection of a creative technique. In practical terms, the categories have a great deal of overlap.