Unpacking Dirt

For the past five years, I have been collecting interesting dirt in the Southwestern United States. This summer I plan to use it all up!

 

I've started by sieving and washing the various materials, and anything sticky I try to form into a little tile for the kiln. Here is some clay from a vein running from the Dragoon Mountains into the San Pedro River below Benson, Arizona.

 

This tile has subsequently been through a cone 06 bisque firing, and it feels pretty vitrified already. It will probably melt at cone 6, so it could be either a nice, low-fire, terracotta body, or a mid to high fire glaze. Or, if I bisque little, crumbled bits of it, I could use it as a nice, mutating inclusion in the higher firing clay bodies.

And here is our trusty jeep, Amanda, at the collection site south of Benson with the Dragoons in the background. 

I believe the geologic term for this, and someone please correct me if I am wrong, is the lovely 'autochthonous residue'.

Our preferred way to travel when rock and dirt hunting is to stay in little, old hotels. We weren't disappointed in Benson! We stayed at the Sahara Motel, just outside of Benson on Highway 80 to Tombstone. I highly recommend it, if this is your thing. Here I am collecting gravel from harvester ant mounds in the parking lot.

 

Photographed by my most trusty assistant, of course.

 

 

 

Residency @ Rancho Linda Vista

For the summer of 2012, Clive and I will be resident artists at the historic artists' community of Rancho Linda Vista in Oracle, Arizona.
I have a whole bunch of dirt that I've collected this spring during our travels around Eastern Arizona and Western New Mexico, and I'm ready to use it. To get started I have to prepare some clay bodies.
I prefer to make my own clay, but during such a short time as a residency I tend to rely on pre-made, bagged clay, since I'll be using only small quantities.

However, I can’t just use it out of the bag.

Unfortunately for us potters, clay is produced mainly for industry, the main consumer, and we artists are pretty unimportant. I find the bagged clay here way to stiff, unless special ordered, so here is what I do with each bag to make it beautiful and plastic.

First I use a wire to cut up the clay (this is Hagi Porcelain, a cone 6 clay) into small pieces: 

Then into the bucket:

 

 I often add some fiber, in this case cheap loo roll:

And water:

 

A good thing about cheap toilet paper is that it breaks down very quickly. I let this batch sit for a week, and I added a teaspoonful of bleach to stop it from rotting. (I have also had good luck, and better smell, with mouthwash.)

Then I blend the clay with a paint mixer on a drill, if I am lucky, or with my hands, if necessary:

When the clay is thoroughly mixed, I let it sit another 24 hours or so, and then I line a bucket with two pillowcases, one inside the other:

 

And pour in the liquid clay:

 

I let the clay slowly dry and age, turning the bag over regularly, or hanging it on a hook:

 

Depending on the humidity, this can take a few days to a few weeks. The longer it takes to stiffen up, the more aged and plastic the clay will be. I usually have a few bags going at a time. I wedge it on a plaster slab when it is just stiff enough not to be sticky, and keep it a bit soft in a plastic bag until I am ready to use it.

Here is my most loyal studio assistant testing it out:

 

I have to put a plug in here for the best clay-in-a-bag I’ve ever had. The Northern Irish company, Scarva, makes the best clay I have ever bought. I am not sure if they have changed, but when I used to use it back in Britain, they hand-made all of their clay to perfection specifically for potters. I wish they would open a store in the USA! Yummy Ming porcelain in the sexy black bag. Do they still use those black bags, I wonder?