So my reclaim pile of clay has been sitting on my plaster bat for awhile…
as the extra moisture settles out and the clay stiffens up. It was still a bit sticky to the touch, but firm enough to get started with the cutting, wedging & bagging part of the process. I start by shaving off large chunks of the clay with my wire tool.

You can see that my reclaim clay mixture is just that… a MIXTURE.
I am more than willing to mix-up all of my assorted reclaim scraps. I will add in any kind of clay as long as it’s a high-fire cone 10 clay body. So you can see there are still some sections of porcelain, darker, ochre clay, lighter B-clay, some organic grayness… and unexpectedly, some blemishes of terra cotta red that must have gotten in there accidentally. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot… so I figure it will just blend in and add a bit of iron-richness to the clay… and it won’t affect the final firing temperature of the mixed clay.

Cause after all… as I tell my students… IT’S JUST CLAY!!!

I take the large chunks and lay them out on my wedging table so the canvas can soak out some more of the extra moisture. I do a very brief wedging of the clay, and then shave off layers and re-stack them into small piles.

I take the stacked piles, cut them in half and stack them back on themselves. Cut the stack in half and layer them on top of themselves again. Repeat a couple times and the layers begin to get thinner & thinner as the clay mixes evenly. It’s a LOT quicker & easier than just straight wedging. The layers squish together easily with a little bit of gravity & slamming down on the table to help along the way!

A bit of quick wedging, and then I set it aside to carve off another chunk from my reclaim pile.
Piece by piece… slice by slice… chunk by chunk…

As I wedge up the piles, the clay is still a bit wetter than I want, so I throw them out stretched as a quick slab… and stand them up so they get some extra air exposure.

Some more wedging of the pieces and they get placed in clear bags. I don’t worry too much about a “perfect” wedging at this point, as I know I will do more wedging when I get around to actually using the clay.

So after a couple hours of cutting, layering & wedging…
I now have well over a hundred pounds of reclaimed clay.
FREE CLAY just from a little work… my favorite kind of clay!!!

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And for those of you who keep wondering or asking about how I soda-fire my ornaments… well, here you go! I make these little clay tripods, bisque fire them, dip the tips in kiln wash and then place each ornament upside down on the tripod. Sure, one or two of them might “jump off” during the firing… but it’s a small price to pay for a lot of beautiful ornaments that have nice soda flashing all around each ornament.

And then the next question?… YES, I throw the tripods away after each firing.
Maybe I could re-use them?… but my gut tells me no.
I know that pieces shrink during the final soda-firing. And I’m afraid that if I use an “already-shrunk” tripod with a “still-to-be-shrunk” ornament, the difference in shrinkage during firing might not work well… and there might be some “shifting” during the firing and ornaments might fall off. So I hedge my bets… and make new tripods for every ornament firing!

After a couple hours of “Pottery Tetris”… I finally got my soda kiln filled to the brim last night. Lots of pots & ornaments that will be coming out just in time for next weekend’s HOLIDAY HOME SHOW!!!

The Back Stack…

The Front Stack…

Adding some colored flashing slip accents to this latest batch of mugs. They will go into my soda kiln next weekend where these muted slip colors will react in the soda atmosphere to create some brighter colors & magical effects… if all goes as planned.

Making handles. Making mugs. Making more, more, MORE!!
Gotta start my HOLIDAY HOME SHOW with over a hundred mugs… or more?!

Starting with little nuggets of wedged clay…
then slammed on the table to make this little carrot shapes.

Then I pull my handles the traditional way with a bit of water and a lot of friction. I like to flip them into loops like this before I let them set-up. I think it’s easier to set 90% of the curve now BEFORE they start to stiffen up.

Then I cut out a good portion of the handles and attach them to the mugs…
score, slip, attach, repeat.

Playing with porcelain. More mugs coming soon!

I just finished adding handles onto my 27 mugs!!!
And Jacob is still running his 26.2 miles.
Okay… so he’s mere minutes from finishing his first Chicago Marathon.
HUGE CONGRATS JACOB!!!

But I still think I won… not that I’m at all competitive?!

With ART IN THE BARN next weekend, I tried my best to pack the kiln full of new pots that will be headed out to Barrington!!! Packed tight with a LOT of pots!!! It’s gonna be a long firing to “push” the soda through all of the pots. I’ll be soda-firing all day tomorrow… “plenty of time” before the art fair!

So the bisque is LITERALLY piling up in my studio… gotta get my glaze on!
                                                                          … starting with a LOT of mugs!!!

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