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.

Spent a couple hours in the studio tonight layering & wedging
my latest batch of porcelain reclaim.
EIGHTY-SEVEN POUNDS of FREE CLAY!!!

Well worth a little bit of labor.
And now I have 87 pounds of FREE porcelain potential!!!

Another batch of porcelain reclaim on the plaster bat setting up a bit…
wedging to commence soon!

Once a piece of pottery leaves my hands I always kind of wonder where it ends up. So it’s been so much fun to see some photos of their final homes. Like these in JoAnn’s house… two tiled mirrors and three textured wall pillows. Perfectly framing the doorway. Perfectly lit to help accentuate the textures.

Ya’ gotta love a gift wrapped in “that special” wrapping that kind of gives away the fun inside. So excited to open and find out what Christmas Gift I’m getting from my friend Sarah Chapman. She knows I have an extensive Mug Collection. So my guess is it’s a mug?! But the really cool part is that it was part of a Surprise Grab Bag of gifts at the Northern Clay Center. So it’s all very random… and I guess all we can assume is that it’s going to be clay?!!!

The Big Reveal… still to come…