Using Natural Clay for Pottery

Video Transcript

"In this segment we're going to start taking a look at how to collect and use naturally occurring clay. That's clay that comes straight out of the ground. Now, up to this point we've looked at how to create your own clay body based on highly processed industrial materials, but because clay is a naturally occurring substance, and it exists right in the ground, we can dig it out of the ground and use it as is. Now, remember that it's a sedimentary material, so, stream beds, and lake beds, and things like that where the material collects when the erosion occurs are good places to start looking. Depending on what part of the country you’re in, you may have tons of clay all around you, and maybe right under your grass in your front yard, just under the topsoil, or you may have to dig a little deeper, or you may not have any at all, but sufficed to say that stream beds and lake beds are good places to start looking which is why I've identified this area here because this stream cut has less topsoil in it already, it's got, the bank is kind of cut, so I can start digging right here, and see what we can find. OK, I found some clay. I didn't have to dig too deep. As you can see hopefully you can see this, it looks like strata, like layers. If you've ever seen a picture of the Grand Canyon for instance, then you know what that looks like. The sedimentary material that collected over time, and that's just what this is, so. But it's got a different coloration to it, and it's got that sticky plastic kind of feel that we're looking for out of a clay body, so. There's a lot of organic matter here. Leaves and twigs and I had to cut through a bunch of roots and things to get down in here, so. I'm going to try and avoid as much as possible getting that extraneous crap into the clay so I have less to clean out, but it's kind of inevitable, and then after I dig some of this out I'm going to show you how to clean out that extraneous material and prepare it for testing and use in your ceramic work."