“Pottery – the first material that humans changed from a natural form into an artificial material” (English Heritage, YouTube video 2017)
After digging up the clay on Alex’s family’s property in Duncan, it was time to process it and prep it for sculpting. Right away we were faced with the challenges that come along with working with raw unprocessed materials, as medieval potters would have in the past. The clay was quite wet, and it contained rocks, roots, other debris, and even worms. Upon researching this topic our group learned how important it is to properly process and prepare raw clay before starting the sculpting process. The photo below is the clay before processing, and the videos following are the clay during and after processing. You can see the drastic difference in workability between consistencies, one very sticky and wet, and the other holding shape, less sticky and more mouldable.
This is the clay before processing.
Processing clay, step by step:
Without the following steps, we risk the clay being too weak to work with, and/or breaking once fired.
Step 1: Collecting and assessing the clay
- Once collected, we examined the clay for moisture content, texture and debris. Since it was quite wet, we knew it would need refining.
Step 2: Hand sifting and removing debris
- Hand sifting through the clay for debris such as small rocks, twigs, roots, and small bugs/worms
- Any drier clumps of clay were crushed and blended into the rest of the clay to create a more consistent texture
- This is a video of the clay during processing:
- Here’s us processing our clay!
Step 3: Adding a temper!
- To make the clay a little drier and easier to work with, we used sand as a temper.
- This helps with stickiness and durability of the clay, making it easier to form
Step 4: Kneading and mixing
- Once the sand was incorporated, we kneaded the clay to distribute the temper evenly
- This helped us achieve a smooth and mouldable consistency, which meant it was ready for shaping
- This is a video of the clay after processing:
Step 5: Preparing for sculpting
- Shaping! Making pottery!
- With our clay now refined, smooth, and a little stronger, we were ready to begin shaping it into medieval inspired pottery pieces.
Stay tuned for our next post about our sculpting process and what we made!