Odd Additions

[Benzine]

Since joining these forums, a couple years back, I've learned quite a lot.  One of those things, is that ceramicists will try mixing about anything into their clay and/ or glazes.

Those, who saggar or pit fire, throw in weed killer and banana peels, those who Raku, reduce in a variety of materials or apply horse hair and those, who do Obvara, use a witch's brew that is somewhere between a really liquid bread dough recipe and a very thick beer recipe.

 

So what are some other "weird" additions, that people add to their clay body, glazes or at any other point in the process?

 

My high school Art teacher, says that, when he was in college, they would urinate on their pots.  I don't recall if he meant that they did it prior to firing, or after pulling them for a Raku type firing.  As I knew nothing of Ceramics at the time, I was just shocked that a person would urinate on a pot.  I guess I just chalked it up to "Man artists are weird...."

[Pres]

When at a workshop a quite a few years ago, I threw clay that had Perlite in it as an additive. This supposedly to make the clay dry faster so we could do the whole process in a weekend and take the pots home on Sunday-glaze fired. It did work, but the clay was a little tougher to throw and quite bumpy.

 

I have also thrown clay that had nylon fibers in it, other clay with saw dust, some with course grog, and some clay that had sugar in it.  All of these were experiments that someone was trying out, and I felt like the experiment was about the guinea pigs trying to throw the clay!

[PSC]

This happened at a neighboring college studio not the college i attended. A really bad smell started to occur in the studio, eventually getting so bad they could not hold class. They tried to track down said smell but it seemed to be coming from everywhere, clay storage, buckets, shelves, kiln room. As they narrowed it down they came up with a commonality of one students ware both on the drying shelves and on the waiting to be bisqued shelf, some bags of clay and the slurry buckets sitting around the room. Upon asking him about his clay they discovered he had read that putting yogurt in his clay would age it faster and make it more plastic. So he added the yogurt, threw some pots, dumped his slurry in the communal buckets, as they dried placed them in the kiln room and had some still drying and then missed two weeks of classes leaving his yogurt clay, ware and slurry to fester and stink. After firing the ware, dumping the slurry and tossing the clay the airing the studio for 2 days it was habitable again.

[Benzine]

Pres, what was the idea behind the sugar, other than making the clay more palatable?....

 

PSC, did the yogurt do its job, other than stinking up the place?

[Biglou13]

Maybe not so odd but...... Chicken grit.......not the oyster shell stuff the granite stuff.

The chicken grit /granite chips are quite beautiful in wood fired pieces.

[Benzine]

Maybe not so odd but...... Chicken grit.......not the oyster shell stuff the granite stuff.

The chicken grit /granite chips are quite beautiful in wood fired pieces.

 

 

Mixed into the clay body, or glaze?

[alabama]

Hey,

     I was told in the summer of 1990 that the water from the pan used to boil potatoes does the same thing as urinating in clay... which in theory

is suppose to make it more plastic.

 

     On the thread of adding different tempers,  I knew an advanced student who for some reason wanted to wedge into his 10 pound units of clay

cellulose insulation.  In his mind, he felt that if he added some 50% per volumn of cellulose to clay, the bottom wouldn't crack.    But when he went to pull up the sides, he found that the cellulose didn't evenly disperse like what he had in mind and there were hunks and lumps of insulation showing up in the exterior walls of his pottery.  So I suggested that if it was the bottoms he was worried about take a 1 inch pad of clay the same diameter of his clay, place the clay on it and when he opened it up and started feeling the cellulose, that was his hint to start pulling up the sides....  I think it worked.  He only threw 10 pounds of clay for his bowls, pitchers, and jugs.  I think he sold everything he made for $25.00 each, because his rule was not to bring anything back home.

 

     We also had some urban cowboys take pottery use the buckets under the potter wheels as spitoons.  So chewing tobacco in class was banned,

as soon as the instructors found out.

See you later,

Alabama

[CarlCravens]

     I knew an advanced student who for some reason wanted to wedge into his 10 pound units of clay

 

cellulose insulation.

Isn't that the recipe for "paper clay"... aside from maybe he used too much paper or didn't wedge it well enough?

[PSC]

PSC, did the yogurt do its job, other than stinking up the place?

I have no idea, the story was told to me by other students suffering from the results of the yogurt not the yogurt user himself.

[Pres]

The sugar was supposed to be something to do with a body oxidant that at the time made not sense to me. However, as I was not very up on clay bodies I tried it. Never noticed much difference in the clay or finished product. None of it was kept around long, as you can imagine it too would smell more.

[Biglou13]

 

 

 

Maybe not so odd but...... Chicken grit.......not the oyster shell stuff the granite stuff.

The chicken grit /granite chips are quite beautiful in wood fired pieces.

 

 

 

Mixed into the clay body, or glaze?

 

 

 

Maybe not so odd but...... Chicken grit.......not the oyster shell stuff the granite stuff.

The chicken grit /granite chips are quite beautiful in wood fired pieces.

 

 

 

Mixed into the clay body, or glaze?

Clay body.

 

Yes any kind of wheel work will be limited. Most so I've read mostly hand build. John B. Will have more experience and scholarly response.

Granite is primarily silca. Feldspar and mica

One images shows where chicken grit, which was red in raw state. Melts white and resists ash glaze. Other is much more subtle from different part of kiln. Drier effect. You can see the the white bits of melting granite.

[Babs]

Sugared clay? Environmentally acceptable mouse bait??

[Denice]

The most unusual ingredient I have ever put it clay was florescent light bulbs, mind you this was back in the late 60's.  My high school ceramics teacher had us smash up the bulbs under water, he said the powder inside was poisonous.  The we crush it up into small chunks and mixed it into the clay, fortunately I was a handbuilder and didn't have to throw it.  Students who did ended up with small cuts every where on their hands,  at C04 the glass would melt and glaze the pot.  The glass did melt and form a glaze but it was quite ugly.         Denice

[Babs]

Beats caning the students!

[Mark369]

We put yeast and warm water in the clay as we mix it.  Helps plasticity and does not smell.  Some times put beer in it instead of water.  We had a girl loose the stone out of her engagement ring. We figure it is in a piece of pottery some place.

 

  After a slab rolling demo showing leaves embossed into clay by the instructor to a beginning class, a lady tried to emboss a frog.

 She was horrified and cried for a long time.

[TJR]

We put yeast and warm water in the clay as we mix it.  Helps plasticity and does not smell.  Some times put beer in it instead of water.  We had a girl loose the stone out of her engagement ring. We figure it is in a piece of pottery some place.

 

  After a slab rolling demo showing leaves embossed into clay by the instructor to a beginning class, a lady tried to emboss a frog.

 She was horrified and cried for a long time.

How did the frog feel about it?

Tom

[Denice]

My class ring is melted down the side of one of my first pots, I had saved for months and only had it for two weeks.  I thought someone had taken it thinking it was theirs but then a dark streak appeared on my piece after the glaze firing.  My teacher scratched at it and said yep that's your ring, loosing the engagement ring is much worse.   Denice

[Babs]

If the stone wasn't loose, it would be harder to lose.

I'e heard about a glaze called frogspot, is this what eventuated?

[Guest JBaymore]

Denise,...... holy crap.... the mercury from the light bulbs....doubt if it all washed off !!!!! Not good.

 

I put TONS of stuff into clay bodies for 土ã‚㘠..... Tsuchi Aji (Sue Chee Ah Gee)........ literal "Clay Taste" or "Flavor Of The Clay"......meaning "character of the clay body".

 

Sometimes there is ALL of the following in one of my clay mixtures: sawdust, granite dust and pieces up to 3/8", granitic sand from the river bank behind my studio, three sizes of commercial grog, molochite grog in two different mesh sizes, fine silica sand, coarse silica sand, crushed chunks of feldspar. And yes.... somtimes it does get thrown.

 

(Not as bad as you think.......but don't bear down heavily on the wheel head with the sides of you hands - you shouldn't anyway with any clay-. )

 

I have one clay mixture that is more rocks than clay. This idea was inspired by seeing a woodfiring potter just outside Mashiko in Motegi back in about 1996 or so. Some of his work more closly resembles glass than clay, as you can see through sections of the walls where the feldspathic rocks have melted. That mixture is a real bear to work with. Horrible to trim. And it takes about 6 to 10 repeated firings in my noborigama before the rocks melt down enough to not be used as a Surform Rasp. Lotsd of failures.... but the keepers are great.

 

I often have students at the college just go outside and dig up some "dirt" and put back into the commercial clay some of the character that the commercial "beneficiating" has so carefully taken out.

 

Don't be afraid to expeiment.

 

best,

 

...................john

[PSC]

I just remembered...spanish moss...i used it to replicate native american pottery temper techniques of the florida panhandle. It did make interesting patterns in the clay after it burnt out.

[Mark C.]

Brass and copper filings back in 1970 in the glaze.

Close but not quite is when I fire a great pair of electrical cutters to cone 11

nothing but a pool oif sharp sludge in the shape of pliers.

Mark