backyard potters

[your_comforting_company]

Delving into primitive pottery is certainly a learning experience rife with failures. For my next attempt, I used white clay from Spring Creek, uncleaned (still got sand in it) and used the coil method to construct the pots. But first, lets look at a couple effigies and "toys" that the kids helped me pinch out and fire.
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In the bowl, we have a head, a funny skull, and a fawn, and on the left, a frog, right a bird. These were test pieces to see if the clay would even hold up in the fire. Since they didn't explode violently we proceeded to coil pots together. Coiling pots gets your hands muddy and my phone doesn't do well with that sort of thing, so you'll have to do a little research on construction. In a nutshell, you roll lumps of clay into long "sticks" then add slurry (really wet clay) between the coils to join them as you smoosh them together.

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On the left, here, we have a water filter, paleo fridge, and a soup bowl in the back, and two drinking flasks in the front. The one on the left I call Pond Crane. This is the raw clay.
The paleo fridge works by slow evaporation. The outer bowl would be filled with sand, allowing room for the inner bowl to sit nicely nested within. Filling both with water allows the outer bowl and sand to evaporate water, cooling the inner bowl contents.

A family friend allowed us to clean up his pecan orchard a little, and we used a large felled log and many MANY smaller limbs for the fire. We banked both sides of the pottery with smaller logs, build a fire on each end of the "rails" and slowly encroached the fire toward the pottery warming it very slowly. ultimately the pottery will turn dark from the smoke and heat, and then we started piling the fire atop the pottery.
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After about 8 hours of this, and with the threat of rain looming on the horizon, we began pulling the cooled pieces from the fire. Apparently some of them were not cool enough and were intact until they cooled too quickly.
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Some of the pieces did make it through the fire, but the outer bowl of the fridge did not. These were the survivors.
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not pictured is the water filter, which I must say works very well. It is shaped like a gnome hat which you fill with water which slowly trickles to the bottom of the cone, then drips into another container. None of these are glazed so they will still leak.
Also of mention is the piece on the right, pictured here. It's called a wedding vase and when married, the couple would drink from opposite sides of the flask.
The inner bowl of the fridge remained intact while the soup bowl developed cracks in cooling. But the other two drinking flasks remained in perfect condition!

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I consider this a HUGE success, especially considering the clay was not mechanically processed or purchased, and it was all fired in an open fire.

It was a LONG day, but worth it!

[Rick]

That's pretty cool. I had to give you some rep for that. I've never worked with clay. I know you had rain coming in but would you have left the pieces in the fire to cool on their own had the rain not been approaching? It seems like the logs would help radiate heat and slow the cooling process letting the clay acclimate to lower temps.

[1stimestar]

Pictures are not showing up for me.

[Rick]

What are you getting? I can see them.

[1stimestar]

I took pottery for two years in college. For the second year you had to come up with a contract with the instructor. Mine was focused on covered dishes. I also thought the people whose contract was to dig their own clay or mix their own glazes had some pretty interesting work. Here's one of my wood fired pieces. I love the color that wood firing gives. This is porcelain.

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[1stimestar]

Heh, after I posted my picture, then his showed up. It originally said something like guests can not see photos.

[1stimestar]

Ugh, ok, it's just the second page photos I can see. The ones on the first page say " Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum."

[1stimestar]

Good job YCC. I am looking forward to seeing more! Yea just leave the pieces in the fire overnight. Don't move them until the next day.

[Rick]

Oops. Didn't check the first page. They are fixed. You should be able to view them now. That's a cool dish by the way.

[hunter63]

That's really cool, and using primitive methods.
Thanks for posting.

[crashdive123]

Nice job YCC.

[your_comforting_company]

@ Rick: Yes, we'd have left them until cool enough to grab with bare hands. Probably until the next day.

@1stTime: That is a great piece! I hope I can get as good as that!

Thanks guys. We had a nice day out in the country sipping sweet tea and seldom tending the fire. Good times

[1stimestar]

@ Rick: Yes, we'd have left them until cool enough to grab with bare hands. Probably until the next day.

@1stTime: That is a great piece! I hope I can get as good as that!

Thanks guys. We had a nice day out in the country sipping sweet tea and seldom tending the fire. Good times

That was made with a kick wheel. I'm sure you could make one. There are directions online and probably fairly easy to make for anyone who is as handy as you are. I'd love to get back into it. Have to buy my own house first though.

[your_comforting_company]

Yeah.. I gotta build one. a house that is Maybe after that
We are planning on building an outdoor clay kiln out at the new place. Plenty of dead wood all the time for firing.
I propose your piece was done in a reduction firing for color, then a high oxidation firing to burn off the carbon?

[phreshayr]

I have dug clay out of the ground here, dried it,crushed and then sifted it. Finally reconstituted the clay. Rolled into rolls and coiled into bowl shape. Here is a unique method of firing that seemed to work well. I dug a pit about 1 foot deep. I lined the bottom of the pit with dry sawdust. I then placed the bowl on the sawdust base. I then buried the bowl in sawdust and built a wood fire on top. Kept the fire burning several hours (don't remember how many now) and left it to cool down. I pulled the bowl out too soon as it was still too hot to handle. It was fine when I pulled it out but quickly developed several hairline cracks. I'm assuming it would have been fine had I let the bowl cool down to near ambient temps before removing from the ashes.

[1stimestar]

Yeah.. I gotta build one. a house that is Maybe after that
We are planning on building an outdoor clay kiln out at the new place. Plenty of dead wood all the time for firing.
I propose your piece was done in a reduction firing for color, then a high oxidation firing to burn off the carbon?

I don't remember. That was fired at my instructor's house way out back in Colorado. It was basically a brick kiln and we just kept the fire loaded all evening. It was a camp out but none of us slept. We just kept loading the fire box. Of course, snacks and beverages were shared by all, hence my not remembering much about it hahhahaha. She brought the finished, cooled pieces into town for us the next week.

[your_comforting_company]

At the Kolomoki Festival on Saturday, I left the wife with the honey booth long enough to visit Mr. Stuckey again. He had some interesting pieces that he called "flame licked" but without glaze, which looked similar to your piece above, and he explained that the cracks work 3 different ways. If the side of the pot blows out, it got too hot too fast. If you get horizontal cracks in the side of the pot, the wind blew while part of it was exposed, and from the opening down, it cooled too quickly. Poor construction or too much sand and it'll just fall apart. Hope that helps Phreshayr, it certainly was an educating discussion for me. Wish I'd had more time.