After detailing the bowls, I decided to start another batch of mugs. You know how I LOVE making mugs!!! They’re my favorite. And if I’m hoping to start the Holiday Home Show with a 100 mugs again this year… I’ve got some makin’ to do!!!

And from those balls of clay I made 18 cylinders. Each one a bit different.

Thrown on square bats – because I love throwing everything on a bat.

After they stiffened up a bit, I carefully removed them from the bats and placed them on a plastic ware board. A great way to condense space… and free up my bats for another round of something!!! They’ll all stay under wraps until I have time to stamp them all… maybe tomorrow???

Upon my return, I was pleased to find that my plants were still alive.
That my class demo pieces under wraps were not totally dried out.
And that my reclaim bucket full of slaking porcelain scraps wasn’t solid hard.
So I pulled out the porcelain reclaim and spread it out on my plaster bat.

I’ll leave it there for a few days and hope that it stiffens up to a good consistency quickly. Then I’ll do some pounding & wedging to get it back to a nice homogenized clay. Bag it up and keep it for my next adventure working with porcelain. Remember, this is “free’ clay from my friend Emily that I brought back from Minnesota back in May!!!

And I LOVE free clay… and this is only HALF of the scraps I brought back!!!

You know how I love free clay!
Okay, so sure I needed to do some physical labor to get it done, but it was well worth it. So I took my stoneware scraps, dried them, smashed them up and then soaked them in a big tub. After awhile, you can take the re-hydrated clay out of the bin and place it on a large plaster bat to help suck the moisture out. I’ve been trying to judge the moisture level of my pile of reclaim. It always dries out faster on the outside, and stays gooier on the inside. Tonight was the night.

So I carefully took the clay off the plaster bat in batches. Then did several sliced layer towers to help homogenize the clay. Some more pounding, slicing, stacking, pounding, stacking, slicing, and so forth.

By the time I finished reconstituting the clay, I had it all packed & bagged… and it turned out to be a 151.5 pounds of FREE clay!!! It’s not fully wedged at this point, but it will set up in the plastic bags. When I get ready to use it, I will do the full wedging then.

While working in the studio this evening, I stopped for a second to look at my pile of reclaim clay. Typically it just sits there on the plaster bat and dries out slowly. But tonight something odd caught my attention… look closely at the bottom edge of the plaster bat!!!

Yep… there’s something “funky” growing down there…

Now I’m not really sure what’s going on here?! I probably should call my sister the High School Science Teacher. Or maybe someone else out there can explain this “fuzzy phenomenon” to me?!!! Either way, it’s pretty cool…

With several bags of dried porcelain scraps from Emily, I felt obligated to get the process started. So I turned out the stoneware reclaim that I’ve had in my orange tub. So I stirred it up, added a little more powdered EPK and stirred some more. I then turned it out onto a large plaster bat for it to set up. The plaster bat will help absorb the moisture out of the gooey clay blob. After a few days, I’ll be able to start wedging it back into usable clay… FREE usable clay!!!

Then it was tine to start the porcelain reclaim. I scrubbed out my orange reclaim bin… and started adding the porcelain scraps into it. A lot of the porcelain scraps are in large chunks, so I did a lot of banging, breaking and “pulverizing” into smaller flakes. The smaller the pieces, the smoother the reclaim.

Add in some water, let the bubbles some up, then add some more water. Once the pile of porcelain flakes are covered with water, the clay will begin to slake down. I’ll stir it up a few times as the water evaporates. And soon enough, I’ll have a huge pile of FREE reclaimed porcelain!!! Thank you Emily!!!

This morning I unloaded my car. Shlepping all of my new clay boxes, glaze boxes and bags of reclaim up to my second floor studio. So thankful that we have a freight elevator!!!

Those bags of reclaim scraps just seem to be multiplying?!!!

Morning stop at Continental Clay to stock-up on a “few” things.
And now back for Day Two of the St Croix Valley Potters Tour.
Like we didn’t do enough damage yesterday?!!!

And yes… the bags in the back are bags of dried porcelain trimmings from my friend & potter Emily Murphy. I used to enjoy getting her reclaim scraps when her studio was across the hall from me at Lillstreet. But now that she’s moved up to Minnesota, I thought my reclaim pipeline had dried up. Apparently not… it just now comes in larger batches once a year!!!

So now I’ve got fresh, new clay.
Bags of dried reclaim scraps.
And now we’re off to the Pottery Tour to see more fired clay!!!

Let’s recap… sunrise bike ride, throw a bag of clay, afternoon bike ride,
throw another bag of clay, stamp, oval, stamp some more, and pizza!!!

Little ball of “potential” wedged and ready to go… err, I mean throw!!!

So you know when you have  a partial bag of “this” clay, and a partial bag of “that” clay. Some of it is a bit too dry. Some of it is a bit too wet. None of it is ready to go. Not quite enough of any one of them to make much of anything. So why not combine them???

As long as they all have the same firing temperature, it’s pretty easy. You might think it takes a lot of wedging. But not really… it’s easier to let gravity do the work for you! It’s a great little trick I learned from Emily Murphy, a former studio neighbor. And I’m going to share it with you!

So I started with three different kinds of clay. Some fairly dry soda clay (top), some squishy, unwedged reclaim mix (middle) and some stiff stoneware with iron (bottom). I start by cutting thin slices of each clay and making new stacks. I try my best to keep the layers even, and restack them by alternating the clay bodies within each stack.

As you can see, each pile is several layers of each different kind of clay.
Some soda. Some reclaim. Some stoneware with iron. Sliced. Layered. Stacked.

So here’s the stack of clay before I start combining the layers… nothing fancy.

Start by picking up the pile and slamming it down on the wedging table. Let gravity do most of the work. And I find it best to slam it down on the corner of my wedging table directly over the corner leg. Seems sturdier… and doesn’t make nearly as much noise!!!

After a quick slam, cut the clay in half. When you look at it, you can see all of the layers of different clays. I don’t know for sure how many there were… so let’s just say 12 layers for demonstration purposes!

So, after slicing the stack in half, put one piece on top of the other…
and now you’ll have 24 layers in your stack.

Another quick pounding on the table and it squishes together and flattens out a bit.
Cut it in half again, and you can see how your layers have doubled and squished thinner.

Stack one half on top of the other, and suddenly you have 48 layers!

Pound it again, cut in half again… and you’ll see how the layers are getting thinner & thinner.
Just from slicing and dropping it on the table! No power wedging. Very little physical labor.

Stack it back up… slam it down and now you’re up to 96 layers!
Pretty amazing how the number of layers multiplies so quickly… more & more, thinner & thinner!

Slice again. Stack again. Slam again. 192 layers!

Slice again. Stack again. Slam again. 384 layers!

Slice again. Stack again. Slam again. 768 layers!

Slice again. Stack again. Slam again. 1,536 layers!… and almost blended.

One last time… Slice again. Stack again. Slam again. 3,072 layers!
And it’s looking pretty well homogenized after some simple slicing & slamming.

So then I just pounded up the pile a bit and I now have a solid block of clay. The three different clay bodies are well integrated. And the difference in moisture levels has been taken care of. Ready to go. Much better to use.

I tackled all seven of the layered stacks I made from the three different clay bags.
Slice. Stack. Slam. Repeat… Slice. Stack. Slam. Repeat… Slice. Stack. Slam. Repeat…
And now I’ve got a tower of clay ready to go. Sure, the clay still needs some final wedging just before throwing. And now I’ve got to make something with this tower of fun!