Last night in my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class, one of my students unwrapped her pots from last week to do a some trimming… and we found THIS under the plastic!!!

Like a Las Vegas Hotel imploding… this cylinder totally crumpled down at the bottom, and the bottom even separated itself from the walls. The other two cylinders wrapped together with this one were totally fine. My only guess is that it was left with some water in the bottom, and then when it was covered with plastic it created a mini “rainforest” in there and the clay slaked-down just like the clay in my reclaim bucket. Never a dull day in pottery!

And now that my reclaim bucket is empty… it’s time to start filling it up again! A little while back one of my students was cleaning off her shelves and brought me her bag of porcelain scraps asking if I wanted them to reclaim. Of course the answer is ALWAYS yes!!! Even better, her last class was a print-on-clay class, so all of her reclaim had already been rolled out into thin slabs. So I just broke them up, spread them out and I’ll let them dry out overnight.

Then I’ll crush them down to small little pieces with a rolling pin and into the reclaim bin they go. Thanks Katie for kickin’ off my next batch of FREE CLAY!!!

Another New Year tradition in my studio is pulling out the latest batch of reclaim clay. I figure it’s been slaking down all through the holidays and is now good & ready! Goopey, sloppy & messy… and my favorite FREE CLAY for the NEW YEAR!!!

And yes, if you look closely, there are a couple different kinds of clay mixed up in there. I don’t really care too much what goes in my reclaim bin… as long as it’s CLAY!!!… and a high-fire clay body. I figure it will all mix up to be some kinda good clay… and best of all FREE!!!

Tonight in my Wheelthrowing class I surprised one of my students with some new clay jewelry!! Katie has been in my class for awhile, and has been playing with a lot of marbled clay this session. A few weeks back, she used the scraper to get a thin layer of marbled clay off her bat after removing the pot. She was going to just throw it in the reclaim, but I stopped her and told her she should make “something” out of it. It was such a cool slice of marbled clay. She didn’t feel like using it to make anything… but I did!!!

And Katie LOVED them… and immediately wore them in class!!!

With the “success” of our marbled clay experiments, last night one of my students continued wheelthrowing with colored clays. Katie used white porcelain, as well as blue & black porcelains she made with mason stains. We’re all LOVING how these pieces have been turning out. A fun novelty to be exploring during these crazy days! They’re looking great Katie!!!

One special piece that came out of my soda kiln firing, was this vase that was a class demo from a couple weeks back. We’ve been playing with some colored clays & marbled wheelthrowing. This piece started with “white” B-clay, brown clay, and a “green” B-clay we made with mason stains. It was an experiment to see how it would turn out in the soda kiln with nothing but the soda atmosphere to “glaze” the exterior. Looks like a great success to me!!! I think we’re onto something…

And here’s the vase I threw last night as part of my marbled clay class demo… now trimmed & skinned to reveal the marbling better. Enamored by the three color combo, the layers & ripples. We decided in class that maybe this one should be soda-fired with no glaze on the outside just to see how the soda effects alter or enhance the marbled surface! That’s the plan!

After a bit of trimming & shaving the “skin” off my marbled clay demo from last night, the layers of colored clay were clearly revealed. Nicely layered & evenly distributed. Now I need to start thinking about how I’m going to glaze it… to enhance the colored clays and NOT obliterate it with some thick gloppy glaze!

After doing my “simple” demo version of marbled clay… one of my students Kelly decided to tackle it with a bit more precision. Cutting, layering, sticking together & making her own version of a Rubik’s Cube!!! I can’t wait to see what she makes with this amazing colored cube next week in class!

Tonight in my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class, we played with some marbled colored clays. We used a light B-clay, a brown clay, and a special “celadon” green clay I made by wedging some Mason stain into it earlier in the week.

A bit of layering, just a little bit of wedging and I got some nice marbled effects in my two demo pieces. When they dry to leather-hard, I’ll trim them and “shave off” the outer skin to reveal even more of the marbled effect.