23 March 2011

A Treat for Doug?!

Just a couple of weeks until "The British Invasion" gets underway with the arrival of Doug and Hannah in Boston. Doug was hoping to ship some of his local clay over but I'm hoping that this beautiful ocher clay will do the trick. 
I'm sending some to Hollis, Doug, and I think you might like it?! It has some sand and fine pebbles and is part of the estuary mud left behind by the Rappahanock River. It's a little 'short' but has amazing dry strength and I love the color. I've used it before as a slip for stoneware temperature and Jason, my new assistant, is putting it through its paces in the electric kiln at LibertyTown.
P.S. John Britt has a great article on roadside glaze material in the latest Ceramics Monthly

6 comments:

Max said...

Dan, I follow your post regularly. I have been working that clay or what looks like it for about a year. Blending it with porcelain, in layers or just a loose mix and firing at cone 10. It is short but works interesting with porcellain unless you want a "pretty" clay. see my blog on Nov 4, 2010 for fired results of my clay mix.

maccraftn2d3d.blogspot.com

Hollis Engley said...

Dan, that looks a lot like the Martha's Vineyard clay I worked with a few years ago. Very ochre-ish when raw, firing to dark iron in reduction. I think Doug will have a nice selection of things to choose from up here. How much are you sending?

brandon phillips said...

all i saw was the photo and a "treat for doug" and i thought to myself "...why is dan giving doug a piece of poo?" hmmmm...

gallagherpots said...

I brought some clay back from Aruba - yes, Aruba of all places (I dug it out of the side of a large hill), that looked very much like this. Surprising, it fired to a deep almost iron red. Quite nice even without a glaze. Some thought it was woodfired and it was only fired to 6 in an electric kiln. Looking very much forward to April's workshop!

doug Fitch said...

Hi Dan
Thank you so much for sorting this out, it's an exciting prospect, trying clay from elsewhere on this globe. I've only ever used English clay - Michael Kline sent me a lump of his 'native dirt' a while ago, but I kept it in it's raw state. Sorry, I'm sounding like the clay nerd that I am - exciting :)

I'm looking forward to seeing you soon - In a terrified kind of way

Unknown said...

This is really treat to watch :)
thnx really

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