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Adventures in Clay
with Leith
This term we learned that it takes a lot of hard work to process clay by hand, and our Riley clay has some interesting properties that distinguish it from store bought clay. We are learning that our clay pieces do not need to be perfect and not every piece needs to go through the whole progress of firing and glazing. It’s okay to make test pieces and it’s alright not to have every piece go from greenware to a finished product. The learning is in doing and we did a lot, learning many lessons as we refined our techniques, practiced building, and made new discoveries. Along the way we found it useful to think like a scientist in order to understand our experiences and problem solve when things got weird. To this end we observed, measured, developed hypotheses and conducted some experiments.
In our quest to build with our own clay we faced many challenges! First, we searched for a new source or cleaner clay. Our existing clay mine is full of roots because trees are also using that clay to grow in. Once we had our new location and dug some clay out of the ground, we puzzled over the best way to get it back to the art room where we would process our clay, which is just a fancy word for cleaning and softening the clay so we can use it. Once the dirt, rocks and sticks were removed from our clay, we kneaded the clay nice and soft, but found it cracked easily when we bent it. Even when it was wet our clay was not very elastic. This could be frustrating and made it difficult to shape our clay into snake coils and other basic forms. Finally and perhaps most disappointingly, we noticed our Riley clay behaved strangely when fired in the kiln. The final color was unpredictable and forms sometimes slumped or drooped in unintended and upsetting ways.
Did we let any of that stop us? No! Ever the problem solvers, children met these myriad challenges and disappointments with creativity and enthusiasm. For example, before we dug our clay we spent time exploring the campus thinking as a miner might. Using maps and our own observations of the landscape around our existing clay mine to develop some theories about where we might find more clay. We challenged our theories and questioned why the clay is there at all. Ultimately four locations were selected and small samples were dug from each. We put on our “mad scientist” hats with a simple experiment to measure the clay content of each sample. Adding water to each sample and mixing it into a solution which we agitated by shaking and dancing. We then left our experiment to settle into sedimentary layers. Heavier rocks, sand, and dirt settled to the bottom first, followed by a layer of fine clay, and finally the less dense sticks, roots, and leaves rested or floated on the top. Next we compared our sedimentary specimens and selected the one with the thickest layer of clay as the location for our this year’s mine.
Next we went digging, working together to fill and haul heavy buckets up the streambank and into a wagon which required teamwork to pull, push, and steer back to the art room. This term we learned about two different techniques for processing clay, one wet and one dry and decided to try the wet method first, perhaps because it is so similar to the sedimentary experiment we had conducted earlier. Once it was clean, we found our clay to be prone to cracking and breaking so we mixed it with recycled commercial clay from the art room. We learned that commercial clay itself is a mixture of several types of clay in specific proportions. The clay parts have great names like feldspar, grog, and ball clay, and each brings its own qualities and strengths to the mix. So we began experimenting again, mixing grog and recycled clay into our Riley clay making a new clay body that we hoped would be stronger and more malleable.
After some of our projects began coming out of the kiln somewhat relaxed and deformed we knew we had more problem solving to do. The clay we dug up came with no instructions for kiln firing and mixing it with other clay bodies further complicated the issue of its behavior at high temperatures. So, we created sets of identical shapes from pure Riley clay and fired them at successively lower temperatures until we found the sweet spot where they solidified but didn’t melt. We noted that melting was an interesting effect and could potentially be used intentionally in the future, but we’d be happier if things came out in the same shape they went in.
Not all our clay projects were disappointing meltdowns. In fact we noticed stacked coils were particularly resistant to slumping at high temperatures and the clay body that results from mixing Riley clay with our recycled clay has a beautiful marbled color.
With cold weather coming, in early November we donned our brightest orange and went out for one last big dig of Riley clay for the year. We are ready to hit the new year running with over 18 gallons of Riley clay harvested and resting under the clay room table. I look forward to making more with your children.
-Leith MacDonald
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