Elders 8 – Clay project 1 – With Tamlin

On a November day, we started our 6 week project with Tamlin, to explore wild clay from earth to object.

Around the circle we dug into our memory of our past experience of clay, often returning to our childhoods and school

Kally began finding her connection to Tamlin, both studying Wood, Metal and ceramics at Brighton. Sitting under a tree and smoothing clay into a ball.
A: I made a mock Henry Moore, a lying down figure in clay
V: I never worked in clay, it was too sticky, but I’m looking forward to it now. My children went to Bramfield School, where Anthony Agogo made clay faces.
E: At evening classes – how good they were – i made a clay pot which i gave to my mother and have it back now
L: I made my first pot with Mrs Genapathy, an amazingly generous and creative teacher
C: Secondary school i learnt on the pottery wheel, made a pot which I gave to my mother and have it back
P: I have never worked with clay
N: I’ve a funny relationship with clay. I thought I’d be an amazing potter but I was always disappointed with how the glaze turned out.
RA: When living in France friends introduced me to clay, I thought I’d take to it, but I didn’t
A: In West Sussex, my spade came out with sheets of clay, tough, but good for roses
D: Being unarty, I was surprised when I made a horse out of clay, which I gave to my mother
M: In my grammar schoo, with Mr Bain we had to work the clay to get the air out, it was tough work. I made a triangular mold, and with a slip glaze.
M: Kentwell hall aged 7, I threw clay onto a wheel
S: I supported refugees making clay pots
C: I may write up my journey with clay one day. I made a seal – the animal kind, not the paper seel – and at Blyford I made a small head.
R: Sister Mary Stephen, what a creative wonderful art teacher she was. I made an abstract form out of clay, random, and she celebrated it.

Plan for 6 weeks
– Session 1: Dig clay / Begin to make
– Session 2: Making, begin to smooth and burnish with a select of tools
– Session 3: Finishing off, burnishing Break – Drying / Firing
– Session 4: Pit firing 1 Gathering fuel, digging and making pit
– Session 5: Pit firing 2 / Uncovering
– Session 6: Cleaning and Polishing work with beeswax.

Tamlin Lundberg introduced herself and her plan for our next 6 weeks. She is researching into Wild Clay. We passed around various possibilities and stages of creation. (She is involved in an exhibition in Kings Lynn, Groundwork, what is taken out of the earth.)

We ventured onto the land, wheel barrow, spades, curiosity, and dug in a few separate places, to find layers of clay, red and blue in hue.

Tamlin explaining

With the clay collected we returned to the fire, and began fabrication of DORO DENGO, round balls.

Some made slip out of the blue clay peppered with spots of chalk , which would need to be sieved out to avoid impurities if fired.

Some wove with Kally’s Saori loom, continuing the weaving started at Samhain, some drew in sepia ink.

Rachel bought out her ancient amphora. She’d got it in exchange for some web work she did for Rupert Wace, dealer in Antiquities, London. ‘Putting your hands around the top of the vase, you can feel the finger prints of the last person to hold the pot, when still wet, before the firing’. The amphora is 5,000 years old!