Potter's Guild

The Potter's Guild is one of the more widespread, but also one of the least glamorous, of the institutions given "member status" of the Commercial Guilds which operate in the Eleven Cities surrounding the Sea of Jars.

History

Potting is one of the more humble but also more fundamental skills practised in the Eleven Cities. Until the discovery of glass in the second century BWR pottery was almost the only way for everyday people to transport or store fluids and thus allowed people to make water-gathering from local sources a once-a-day chore rather than an undertaking that had to take place every time water was needed. Oil for cooking and (later) industrial processes could also be manufactured, stored, transported and - crucially for an emerging mercantile economy - sold. Although glass is now cheap enough that all but the poorest households tend to possess some, it is still considered a rather fine, fragile and fiddly material, and most fluids in the Eleven Cities - particularly those stored or transported in any particular quantity, such as wines - are stored and transported in pottery.
In pre-Wesmodian times the importance of pottery was visible in the amount of decoration potters lavished on their wares. Black slip was used to outline decorations and then fill in the spaces around them; when fired, the result would be that the decorations stood out as terra-cotta red against the black backgrounds. Early examples of this art form displayed mostly abstract geometrical patterns and motifs, though over time these increasingly gave way to figurative art frequently depicting scenes from mythology or motifs of religious significance. For many years such mythological art predominantly focused on stories surrounding the fire god Ajqyod, seemingly an odd choice for vessels intended mostly to contain fluid until it is remembered that fire was essential to the potter's craft; these vessels were manufactured by being fired at high temperatures for long periods of time, and courting the fire-god's favour by employing his iconography makes sense. Suns are common, with or without rays, and dancers engaged in what is widely supposed to be representations of the god's ritual dances.Thaumatologists have been known to go to some lengths and considerable expense to acquire examples of pre-Wesmodian pottery in order to study its Ajqyodian iconography,
Over time a second strain of ceramic art developed focusing on botanical figures and scenes of agricultural labour and village life. For much of the post-Wesmodian era it was generally supposed that these jars were manufactured for the transport of oil or (more likely) wine from the Alluvial plain to the cities to the north. Many of these artefacts are found in and around the northern cities of Oluz and Halumay, strengthening this possibility, and thaumatologists have sought them out in the hopes of garnering some insight into pre-Wesmodian village life and, in particular, the traditions surrounding the worship of Dahan. The difficulty with this supposition is that the art style exhibited on these vessels is highly reminiscent of northern styles and therefore more than likely of local manufacture, and it is fairly conclusively established that Dahan was never worshipped in either Oluz nor Halumay. This pottery may therefore not depict the actual worship of Dahan but picturesque foreign interpretations of tales thereof. Proponents of the competing theory observe the striking similarities between the scenes on these pots and what is known of public worship of Dahan.
In the post-Wesmodian era, however, the practice of decorating pots with religious art obviously fell off rapidly, to be replaced with secular scenes or a reversion to abstract patterns, though the need for pottery continued. Guilds, workshops and collectives existed in all cities and numerous smaller communities, typically formed around the collective ownership of kilns. As the Commercial Guilds began consolidating their power in the first century AWR, they became valued customers of these groups, and in some cases monopolised their output. The notion of standardising the proliferation of styles and sizes produced by these workshops quickly took root among the Guilders, whose saw the advantages in a set metrology to assist in international trade. Over a period of several years in the 110s, therefore, an effort was made to have the potters in these workshops acquiesce to becoming the artisans in an international network with standardise working practices and models. In most cases the potters appear to have been willing to become involved with this; where they were not, the Guilders were apparently prepared to set up competing workshops and drive the original collectives out of business. By around 130 AWR, the manufacture of pottery in the Eleven Cities had become more or less corporatised.

Current activities

The Potter's Guild produces the pottery used in international trade - the vessels in which wine, oil and grain are transported. They abide by a series of standardised sizes and varieties of pots, jugs and vats to order for the Commercial Guilds, and these wares have become fairly central to the material culture and thinking of the port districts through which international trade passes. The job is not especially glamorous, but the members of the Guild take a certain pride in expediting the lifeblood of the Eleven Cities.
The wares of the Potter's Guild are not decorated, being seen as entirely utilitarian objects. People who wish to decorate their pots typically do so themselves. It should also be noted that the reach of the Potter's Guild does not extend much beyond major urban areas. In the rural communities of the Alluvial plain, for example, local village potters still operate and have been known to decorate their work. Thaumatologists are sometimes interested in studying this work in progress to determine if it contains any echoes of the religious art found on pots of the pre-Wesmodian period.