Pottery "From the Ground Up"

I have recently become interested in making pottery without using a kiln. This summer I am teaching a pottery class at Camp Asbury titled "From the Ground Up." The focus is on making tools, preparing clay from the ground, and primitive firing.

Step 1. Clay. Easy to find in Ohio, just dig a hole and it's there. Step 2. Let it DRY. Completely. Then, add water and it will disintegrate and slake down into fine mud. Mix it up, and screen through an old metal window screen to remove, sticks, stones, stuff you don't want in your clay. Step 3. Dry your slurry into workable clay. This can be done by putting the slurry in an old pillowcase and leave it out on the concrete. I have a plaster top wedging table where I dry my clay. Hardi backer cement board or old drywall would also make a good surface. NOTE: if you use a plaster surface, DO NOT get plaster into the clay.

Once the clay is a workable consistency- test it by squishing it up until it feels right. Then, you can make some pinch or slab pots from the clay. I made 4 pots for my first test firing.

Pot (A) is homemade clay with white stoneware mixed in and "marbled."

Pot (B) has brown stoneware added, because I felt the clay right from the ground was a bit cracky, or short.

Pot (C) has some sand added to the clay, which made it even more cracky.

Pot (D) has nothing added and is thrown on the potter's wheel.

I tried to keep the pots even in thickness, no thinner than 3/8" - 1/2". Also, I have placed the pots in my kiln to preheat at 200 degrees for several hours. I have never successfully fired green clay in an open fire without cracks and explosions. I'm convinced that moisture is my enemy. Smarter people than I have been doing this for thousands of years, so what's my problem?? My attempt to be SURE that the pots are really dry is to preheat them for several hours in my kiln. This could also be done in an oven.

Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to have pics of fired, undamaged pots later!

This is my latest, and best, barrel fired pot to date. I fired it while working with some kids at Camp Asbury. I usually use primarily salt and miracle grow in newspaper saggars, but this time I used some commercial fertilizer pellets that they had on hand at the camp. I'm really pleased with the results. The pot is now in the student/faculty show at Valley Art Center.

I had some crackling and peeling of the terra sigillata- so I intend to change my recipe and try applying it thinner. Also, there is a bit of salt scumming on the surface of the pot. Too much salt?
The color, though, is right where I want to be.

Barrel Firing Again..

This is one of the pots I fired last time in the barrel. Lots of smoking because I kept the fire covered with a grill cover- not alot of color because I skimped on salt and miracle grow- I didn't see any real effects from the corn husks and so I didn't go through the drying and brining this time..

Here is a pot from this firing- colorwise, my favorite. I only bisqued these pots to ^019- they were very soft and brittle- I will go higher next time with the bisque. Also, the terra sig crackled and peeled in some places, and this pot spalled. I used alot more miracle grow, table salt, and aquarium salt in the newspaper saggars with pine needles and tiger grass. I will apply the terra sig more thinly next time- and the spalling???? The only thing I can think of is that the aquarium salt was kind of wet when I put it in the saggars, maybe the pots absorbed enough of the moisture to develop this problem.

This pot ended up with a chipped rim and crackled sig- a little spalling, but much more color than my first barrel firing- I fired this time without covering the barrel at all, so I believe there is alot less black because of it. I did have to use a leaf blower to get the shavings/horse bedding to light- I may loosen things up a little bit with more straw next time. Bulk of the firing took about 5-6 hours.

This pot is from the first firing also- lots of smoky black, enhanced by furniture paste wax. I also tried Rain-X car wax- it polished well, but the stuff dries blue, so if there are crevices you can't get into with a rag, it leaves marks on the pot :( So, paste wax it is..

All in all, I was pleased enough with the colors in the firng that I definitely will do it again. I also tried some china painting on some of the pots, but I did not get enough heat to set the china paint in some spots. I won't prefire the china paint because of the lead- I will not contaminate my kiln. It's got potential, I just need more heat.

On another note, I did get a small freebie kiln- I think there may be raku in my future.

Menorah Park Pottery

Pots made recently by the seniors at Menorah Park in Beachwood. I have the best time working with these folks. Hand built, textured with stamps and fabrics, fired to ^6.

Barrel Firing

About 2 years ago I had pots in a group pit firing and got some good results. No place to dig a pit at my place, so I decided to try barrel firing. A recent video on Ceramic Arts Daily by Sumi also got me "in the mood" to give it a try. Here are some pots I made using a few different types of clay I had on hand, with terra sig on them, bisqued to ^019.

The terra sig. recipe I used is from Clayart.

500g OM4 Ball Clay

1000g EPK

14 cups water
2 tsp Trisodium Phosphate

Let it settle for a few days, siphon off water on top and about the top third of terra sig. This is white terra sig. You can make different colors by adding stains and oxides. I may get to that if my firing pleases me.

As for the stuff to color the pots, I followed Sumi's advice. I'm using alot of table salt, dried coffee grounds, horse stall bedding brined and dried corn husks- lots of those from eating great corn this year! I did have alot of luck with newspaper saggars in the pit firing, and since I haven't saved absolutely tons of stuff, I will use these items in my newspaper saggars. Also, I have used Miracle Grow and copper oxide in the past, so I'm throwing that in, too.

Figuring out how to dry the coffee grounds and husks without bugs galore was tricky, but a baby pool and stroller cover came in handy. Now I know why I never got rid of this stuff! A few days in the sun and we're good to go.

I loaded the kiln yesterday, but it was kind of rainy, so I will fire today. There are holes in the bottom of my barrel and some bricks and a grate- I decided to leave the very bottom empty for air flow...no big reason. I layered paper, wood shavings, horse stall bedding, salt, miracle grow and saggared pots- 2 layers, about 9 pots in all. Wish me luck.

I needed pots... fast. Brisk sales at Log Cabin Gallery left me, let's say, "inventory challenged."

Fortunately, mother nature cooperated and I had pots sunnin' with the peonies.

They are now fired and you can find these and more for sale at the Log Cabin Gallery in Peninsula, Ohio. Berry bowls, serving bowls, platters and bunches of mugs-two firings I was particularly pleased with. Gotta love it when a plan comes together!

A pot of a different color

This happened to me several years ago, in my old kiln. I messed up a cooling cycle and got my Waterfall Brown to turn red. After talking with one of the authors of "Mastering Cone 6 Glazes," I found that just refiring this glaze to bisque temp turned it red.

Not so in my new kiln. Until my most recent firing. In an attempt to save a slow cooling cycle, I turned it back up from 1227 F to 1800 and cooled normally. Red!

Actually, a kind of brick, orange red. Not so impressive. So, I stuck 'em back in the kiln and refired to ^6 to see what would happen. They darkened up and became a much nicer color, with all kinds of surface variation that I kind of like. After flipping out a little that I now have 4 place settings of tableware that don't match anything, I decided that maybe this is worth pursuing. Besides, I've been trying to get my iron red glazes to work out in this kiln with no success until now. Happy accident.