And then today after Summer Camp, I decided to re-fill my “recently-emptied” reclaim bucket. So I washed it down and started filling it with porcelain scraps. A potter friend in Minneapolis gives me ALL of her reclaim scraps… so I have a lot of dried porcelain to process. This afternoon I started pulverizing, filling my bin and then adding water to help slake it down. A little bit of work to get a whole lot of FREE clay!!!

Yesterday, after summer camp, I turned out a huge pile of reclaimed clay. These are all of my scraps & trimmings from my weeks of art fair production. I broke down the scraps and soaked them in water for a few weeks. The trimmings are nice & gooey. So I mixed it up and turned it out onto a large plaster bat to help absorb the excess moisture. When it stiffens up a bit, I’ve going to have a LOT of wedging to do!!!

Today was another messy day in Wheelthrowing Camp. The kids were throwing with terra cotta clay… and found it to be a LOT dirtier & sloppier than regular stoneware. Messy… but so much FUN!!!

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After sitting on my plaster bat for a few days, the pile of reclaim clay has stiffened up enough to start working with it. So I take off chunks of clay and pound them loosely in to squared blocks. And then I slice them into thin slices and alternately layer them into different stack. As you can see, I am more than willing to mix several different clay bodies into my reclaim. As long as they’re all a cone 10 high-fire clay body. It’s just clay, right?

So I take the layered stacks and pound them down on themselves.
Cut it in half and stack one stack on top of the other half. So if you started with 10 layers, you now have 20 stacked. Pound it down, then cut it in half and stack them again. Now you have 40 layers. Repeat, 80 layers. Repeat. 160 layers. Repeat. 320 layers. Repeat. 640 layers. And so on… and so on. It’s amazing to see how quickly the different clay bodies all get homogenized into one blend.

Then I take the freshly mixed parts and pound them into blocks. These will now be bagged up and ready for use at a later date. I’m too busy right now trying to finish up the production cycle with glazing & firing to be making new stuff. That is going to have to wait until after my first two art fairs! I will be sure to re-wedge it all before actually using it for throwing.

So there we have it… mixed, bagged and ready for a spin on the wheel. FREE CLAY.
One hundred and twenty-eight pounds of it. That’s a lot of pottery potential.

And there it is… FREE CLAY

Gotta love a good pile of gooey reclaim clay!
Just imaging the possibility of all this “free” clay.
It’s amazing what a few trimmings mixed with water can make.

Always a great way to start the day… my annual Saturday morning visit to Continental Clay in Minneapolis. Filling up my car with some new clay with tons of potential. My car was riding a little lower than normal. Especially with the additional bags of dried porcelain reclaim from my Minnesota potter-friend Emily!

After posting last night about re-hydrating my dried-up “vintage” clay, two of my Facebook Fans, Amy & Sharon, turned me onto this video. It’s a quick-fix for making that bone dry block of clay re-useable again. I’ll definitely give this technique a try on my next dry block. Seems easy enough. Thanks to Janice Wilson Hughes of Evolution Stoneware for sharing her re-hydrating trick on YouTube.

Click here for the YouTube video by Janice Wilson Hughes.

I’ve been doing so well at reclaiming & re-using my clay…
that I kind of “forgot” to use some of my “new” clay. Well, new back in 2011 or 2013.

Here’s the key to the secret code: The last two digits of the Continental Clay code is the year it was produced, and the number before is the month. So I’ve got boxes from August 2011 and February 2013!!! Both of which were practically dry!

So I spent a lot of tonight pounding the hardened blocks on the ground to “re-awaken” the thixotropic clay. Didn’t soften it enough, so I also added some holes and filled them with water. I’m hoping that in a couple days we’ll be back to some good usable clay, And I’ll be able to use that five year old clay as though it were “new” again!

After The Greeks, I was tap dancing on being visually overstimulated… but not quite.
So I continued my tour of old pots in the China Exhibit. And again, I was impressed by the pots in the exhibit… keeping in mind how old these pots are. Taken out of context of the museum exhibit, I think you could find most of these forms at any art fair nowadays!

A beautiful celadon teapot…

And a few examples of early sgrafitto… in graphic black & white…

And again, saved my favorite for last… love the pattern, the design, the colors…
and the “rusty-ness” look of it.

My friend Nancy had an opening tonight in the gallery of ClaySpace in Lisle, Illinois.
“A Feast of Bowls”... just bowls, nothing else. But bowls of all sizes & uses.

It was several years ago that Nancy and I were on a bike ride in southern Indiana when we stopped for lunch. While walking around Nashville, Indiana we stumbled upon a small potter’s studio. It was then that Nancy suggested we take a pottery class. She did the research and found Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago. We both took our Beginning Wheelthrowing class… and have never looked back. So it’s all HER fault that I now have this crazy clay addiction!!!

Anyway, enough about me… Nancy took some time off from clay to get married, have a kid and move to the suburbs. But is now back in full swing as a Resident Artist at ClaySpace in Lisle. It was fun to go out there tonight to support a good friend, see her beautiful bowls and explore another ceramic studio space.

“A Feast Of Bowls” runs through the end of the month if need a new bowl or two!

Click here for more of Nancy’s pottery.