Here are six of the clays we dug and collected from around Fife. It has been dried, slaked down to a creamy consistency, sieved, settled out, dried out and wedged. Now it is resting. From a potters point of view, in terms of workability, plasticity and strength, clay "improves" with ageing or souring. It is normally recommended that clay needs two weeks to sour, but potters in Chine and Japan used to keep clay in this plastic state to pass on to future generations. Clay also improves with being wedged (similar to kneading bread dough) or pugged (similar to passing through a sausage machine).
Hi ,Very intersted in your web site,my name is donald bradford,my wife and i have had a pottery ,in fife for 22 years,we are called earthen images,www.earthen-images.com i remember digging some clay at shell bay and firing it it was black when dug,but fired it was red,it was fired at stoneware temperature,so it would suggest it was ared stoneware clay,would be very intersted to hear how you get on with the fife clay you are getting,do you fire at earthen ware or stone ware,thanks Donald.
ReplyDeleteHi Donald, Thanks for getting in touch. I'm interested to hear that you were able to fire the clay you found to stoneware temperatures. All the clays we have dug around Fife have the characteristics of red earthenware clay, except for the Crail Beach clay, which is a buff colour, though I still consider it to be an earthenware. However my assumptions might be wrong - I haven't actually fired any of them to stoneware temperatures, so it may be that some of them would stand the heat! I did over-fire the clay that I get from Easter Kincaple and it slumped and blistered very badly. My understanding though is that all the Fife clays are secondary clays and so likely to be earthenware. You can see how we got on with the above clays at http://madefromfife.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-finished-plates.html
Delete