Wild Clay #30 in Free Online Glaze Class

This is a 30 minute video talking about how to find Wild Clay, how to process it and how to make shrinkage/absorption bars to determine what to add to Wild Bodies. Get the book "Wild Clay"by Matt Levy, Hitomi Shibata, Takuro Shibata for a more thorough description of this fascinating process.

[@zachhawkins2698]

Indeed! Very good information for an aspiring potter! Loo mi my forward to trying out some of these things!

[@lucasschick8423]

Thanks John! Helpful info

[@gargamelts]

I love these thanks a ton for the videos!

[@johnbrittpottery]

Glad you like them!

[@connecticutaggie]

VERY COOL! Thanks. My son first got interested in clay when he found some in the creek at the end of our street. We played some with it but no one would fire it. Now we have own kiln and I think I still have the original clay so I'll have to pick it up again.

[@johnbrittpottery]

Just use drip trays.

[@connecticutaggie]

@@johnbrittpottery Will do. I have some cookies so I can probably use those to test small balls first or maybe I'll make some trays for my next bisque firing.

[@wallylasd]

A construction site downtown hit a small vein of super dark red clay, if only I could scrape some off the road without drawing attention.

[@connecticutaggie]

@Tony, construction people can get pretty uncomfortable with having people on their site but they often are pretty nice people. I understand there is always the question about whether to ask permission or ask forgiveness. If it is a small uncontrolled site, maybe showing up when they aren't working and seeing if you can connect some clay would work; but, if it is a controlled site (fence, etc.), I would recommend to see if you could find someone to ask and be prepared and have a small bucket and a gardening shovel in case they say yes.

[@connecticutaggie]

A separate question that I think is related. I was gifted and bunch of clay from a person that stopped doing clay. It is a low fire tile clay. Is there a way I could turn that into a mid fire pottery clay?

[@johnbrittpottery]

Not sure it is worth it...a lot of time...blend it with a high fire clay. 65(high) /35(low)...just a guess...

[@connecticutaggie]

@@johnbrittpottery Thanks, I am not sure if it is worth it on not. If I do try it, how can I tell what it can fire to? Do I try making cones out of it, test absorption at different cones, ..?

[@emblemcc]

I have not found the "Wild clay" book worthy. First quarter is self promotion, another quarter is little informative in summary like 3-5 pages of useful information and the last half of the book is unimportant presentation of their friends who's text is like variations of the same thing. Well I started the journey with the Complete Guide to Mid-Range Glazes and High-Fire glazes and after that it is hard to find a good book to read that gives me more information on that topic. Sure there are many, but surely not books like "Wild clay" or "Natural Glazes" (which I found unbearable to read.) Thanks for your videos, and all you do as it is source of real information not like some contemporary books.