 |
| Is it clay or is it just mud? |
A student delivered a small baggie of
natural local clay to the art room the other day. He dug it up at the
reservoir. Frankly, it looked like a little pile of mud – or worse.
But “S” claimed it was clay, so I poured it onto a stack of paper
towels and let it dry a little. When “S's” class appeared later
that day, we talked briefly about where this clay was found, and then
“S” set out to form it into something. We wanted to try a test
firing. The clay was greenish brown. It had a few sticks in it. “S”
made a small pinch pot and we left it to dry.
 |
| Pinch pot fired inside a larger pot in case the new clay melts in the kiln |
The next day, we checked the pot and it
was holding together well. I explained to the class that we don't
know what temperature this clay can be fired to – it could melt if
it is fired at too high a temperature. The safe way to fire “S's”
little pot would be to place it inside another pot made from our
regular low-fire clay. That way, if it melts, the clay we know will
protect the kiln shelf.
 |
| Finished pinch pot by "S" - Grade 5, made from clay from the beach at the Waterbury Reservoir |
Students predicted that the
brownish-green clay would fire red, because I let slip earlier that a
similar experiment with “playground clay” in Colorado started
out mud-color and fired up red.
They were right! The little pot fired
to a lovely terra cotta red.
There is something magical about this
process. I hope more students dig up and bring in clay from our
area. It will be interesting to see if there is variety in samples
from different locations.
