Author: Alexandra Lee

Step 4: Drying and Firing!

In my previous experiences drying the clay, I found out that there is a higher rate of success when the clay is dried very slowly, and completely. If the clay dries out too rapidly, cracks can form in the structure of the objects. Once those cracks form, there is really no way to fix them, so it’s best to prevent them in the first place.

In order to ensure that the objects dried as slowly as possible, we covered them in loose paper bags to trap some of the moisture in.

We left the farm and headed back down to Victoria for the next two weeks of classes, and the next weekend I was able to go back to Duncan to fire the now fully dry clay. Different sources gave different answers for exactly what temperature the fire would need reach in order for our clay to become pottery, but regardless we knew we would need to build a large and very strong fire. We started the fire without the clay objects in order to get it going and create a bed of embers.

Once the fire was burning well, we split the fire in two sections, and carefully placed our objects in the middle. We set them down carefully, and then decided to flip them upside down so that the heat could be trapped inside of the bowls and hopefully bake more evenly.

Once all the objects were inside the fire pit, we pushed the two sides of embers back together and built the fire back up around the clay objects using both larger and smaller pieces of firewood. I think that this was a good way to approach this process, as it allowed us to place the objects down very carefully to decrease the risk of accidentally breaking them.

Now that we had built a large fire with lots of fuel, we sat back and let the fire do its thing.

The fire burnt for a couple of hours, and we decided to let it cool on its own accord so that the objects could cool down gradually and not be shocked by the temperature change. It was a little difficult to be patient as I was so excited to see how things turned out, but I knew that the objects would be in their most fragile state until they’d fully cooled down. Once the ashes were only a little bit warm, we were able to uncover our treasures.

My first impression is that it was amazing to see the colour change that the clay went through during the firing process. The natural clay straight out of the ground was a dark, murky sort of gray colour. Our fired pottery became a rich terra cotta orange, and even though the shapes of our pots really showed our beginner level experience with shaping pottery, the objects were still quite beautiful and organic.

As we dug through the ashes, we were sorry to see that a few of the pots did not survive their journey. While this was a little bit disappointing, it was expected, and the good news is that the damage was evenly spread out amongst the members; everybody had at least one of their objects make it out unscathed!

Once fully cooled, we carefully wrapped up the objects in newspaper and placed them in containers to transport back to Victoria, to show the rest of the group and to proudly display in the Cornett building. We chose to bring some of the broken shards as well for people to be able to feel and see the patterns and lines where the clay broke. I think the highlight of feeling these clay objects is tapping on them- you can actually hear where the clay reached the highest temperature based on the sound you hear!

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our process nearly as much as we enjoyed experiencing it ourselves! This was a really unique undertaking and we all learned a lot about hands-on education, all while having a whole lot of fun!

Step 1: Harvesting the Clay!

With my rainboots and overalls on, and my trusty wheelbarrow and shovel, I was ready to dig up some natural clay! Having collected clay from my partner’s grandparents’ property before, I already had a good idea of where to start digging.

The ground in this area of the horse’s paddock was very wet, and I could tell from how slippery it was while walking that there was a clay deposit here. We’d have to dig down a bit to access it though. While picking the best spot to start digging, I considered the foliage, and picked a spot with less grass and clovers so there would be less debris to pick out of the clay during later steps. We chose a spot just under the fence, where the horses don’t tend to run, so that the soft spot left behind wouldn’t be a risk for them stepping into it and hurting themselves. I imagine this was a consideration that people had to make in medieval Europe as well, as livestock were valuable and holes from harvesting clay could be dangerous to them.

There were definitely some funny sounds that resulted from pulling up the clay, but as seen in the above video, it only took a quick squish of the mud to feel that it was pure clay. I found it amazing how intrinsic this process was. Before this experience, if someone asked me to describe the different between wet clay and mud, I may have struggled. This process made me realize how much more reliance there is on feeling while working with these natural materials. Looking at the ground wasn’t enough to know what was right, I had to touch it and sense the material with my hands in order to know.

This is how the clay looked immediately after scooping it out of the hole we dug and placing it into the wheelbarrow. It’s hard to envision how this natural clay could turn into fired pottery, but this is merely the first of many steps.
This natural clay contains many different colours- rust and orange and blue and gray. It also contains many bits of plant debris, which will be removed in the next step.

Once I felt that we had collected enough natural clay, I pushed the wheelbarrow back across the field, trying not to slide too much in the very slippery earth. I was grateful for my rainboots to protect me, and I thought about what type of clothing a medieval European may have worn while harvesting clay. What types of footwear might they have had to keep themselves warm and dry?

The clay was very cold straight out of the ground, so we positioned ourselves as close to our bonfire as possible as we prepared for the next step of our pottery-making journey; processing our clay.

Our Research Proposal

Here we will give more detail about the exact plan for our project, including each individual step we will take while working with the natural clay.

Our research questions:

  1. What was the experience of harvesting clay from the ground like?
  2. What was the experience of processing the clay like?
  3. How did it feel to shape and sculpt the clay? Will it be easy and intrinsic, or will it take a lot of trial and error?
  4. Will our clay objects survive being fired, and what changes will occur in the clay throughout that process?
  5. How does our experience in harvesting, preparing and firing the clay compare to medieval sources and what may have been created in those times? What are our limitations? Did our experience ‘feel medieval’? Why or why not?

Throughout our little clay adventure, we will keep these questions in mind to think about and reflect on during the entire process.

Materials:

  • Clay harvested from family farm in Duncan – Alex has harvested this clay and worked with it previously so we know where to look and how to dig for it
  • Sand from river bed as a temper for the pottery (If the river is too high to collect sand safely, we will use play sand purchased from Canadian Tire)
  • Firewood and fire pit (located at the farm) to fire the pottery in
  • Big bucket of water to rewet our clay and make it easier to work with
  • Our own hands!
  • Likely we will have some tools like stick and scrapers to add details and designs to our sculpted objects
  • Finally, we will need plastic bags to cover our objects to allow them to dry slowly

The steps we will take:

  • We will harvest clay from clay deposits located on Alex’s family farm using shovels and a wheelbarrow. At this stage the clay will be chunky and brittle. We will also try to collect sand from the creek bed nearby that will be used as temper for our pottery. If the river bed is too high to reach the sand, however, we will substitute with play sand from Canadian Tire.
  • Processing the clay – this involves kneading the clay and squishing it together to make it more workable and cohesive. We will likely need to pick some rocks/roots/debris out of the clay at this point. Allowing the clay to dry more and/or adding water to the clay will also make it more workable.
  • Shaping the clay – we will shape the clay into various objects yet to be determined. We imagine we will make some bowls, plates, cups, and maybe some other objects that will be more fun/decorative depending on how much time we have.
  • Allowing the clay to dry – from conversations with friends who create pottery in their own time, we know that it is crucial to allow the clay to dry slowly and completely before firing it. Previously, Alex has learned this through error that resulted in her clay objects breaking and exploding in the fire, and we are hoping to avoid that. We will keep our clay objects covered to let them dry slowly, and give them at least a week to dry out completely.
  • Firing (this will likely happen a week or two later so Alex will most likely take the lead on it at the farm) – we will create an outdoor fire in our fire pit and make it as large and hot as possible to allow the fire to reach a high enough temperature. When Alex has experimented with this in the past it was possible but required a lot of stoking and firewood, as well as carefully placing the objects as close to the embers as possible. We will most likely place the objects in the fire for a few hours and then let the fire burn down and cover it overnight so that the objects are trapped in the heat of the embers.
  • The final step will be the following morning, pulling the objects out of the ashes. There will likely be a colour change to indicate if the clay has become pottery; we will also be able to hear the difference by flicking the objects with a finger and listening to the sound it makes. Alex will bring the objects back from Duncan for us to assess and analyse. 

That is our plan! We have found a few YouTube videos we will likely consult whilst at the farm to figure out the best ways to shape our natural clay into bowls, plates, cups, or other objects commonly found on archaeological sites. The above video is more geared towards prehistoric pottery, but many of the techniques and information are still relevant, plus we just like looking at his silly little vest.

Wish us luck!

Welcome to our Medieval Pottery Blog!

Hello!!

In our first post we will be giving a general outline of our goals for this experiential pottery journey we will be going on.

For our experiential archaeology project, we will be recreating medieval clay sourcing and pottery-making. We do so at one of our group member’s family farm, where there are natural clay deposits. The three of us will make the physical journey at the family farm to harvest the clay from the property’s creek, emulating the extraction process from medieval times and being able to experience how it would have felt to have to get the clay itself. What will the weather be like? How will it feel to dig the clay out of the ground? What tools will work best? Next, we will go through the pottery process, which includes preparing the clay, processing it, creating the pottery, letting it dry, and finally, firing the clay in a bon fire. Being able to experience the pottery process from start to finish will be an enriching and insightful experience – we’ll get to do the ‘dirtier’ work, as well as the artistic part of the process. We will try to make some objects commonly found in the archaeological record, such as bowls, cups, and plates, but if we have time we may experiment with our creativity and create some other decorative objects. The reality is; this is going to be wet, slimy, and messy, and we cannot wait to see where the adventure takes us.