Looking for locally sourced clay in Midwest

[sbogda]

Hi everyone, I'm looking to buy 50-100 lbs of dry or wet clay that's local to Illinois, Wisconsin, or Indiana. This is only for greenware. I've searched Chicago Ceramic Supply and Amaco but they're not helpful as to where their clay is sourced from. If anyone has more info, I'd be super grateful.

[Kelly in AK]

From browsing the web I see there is a variety of clay in all those states, Indiana seems to be the one where clay is still actively mined/processed on a large scale.

https://igws.indiana.edu/IGSMap/mineralproducers

The darkest blue dots on the interactive map show clay and shale producers. 

[Hulk]

Clay City Pottery in Clay City, Indiana claims to be "...processing the local clay..." on their website.

Perhaps try asking some of the bigger pottery supply stores about clays mined and processed in state?

[neilestrick]

14 hours ago, Kelly in AK said:

The darkest blue dots on the interactive map show clay and shale producers. 

These appear to be brick makers, however it may be worth a call to see if they are willing to sell you sone clay. As brick clay it may be very chunky since they probably don't do a lot of refining.

Why do you need it to be locally sourced? Is this a geology project, or are you just looking to reduce your carbon footprint?

As potters we are at the mercy of industry, because all the potters in North America don't use enough clay to support any clay mining and processing operation. We have to buy our ingredients from whatever sources are available. For companies like Amaco and CSC that make clay bodies, they will source their ingredients from a nearby as possible, but that generally means from this half of the country. A lot of kaolin and balls clays are mined in Georgia and Tennessee, for example. Clay body suppliers on the east coast and in the midwest typically do not use clays that are mined out west unless it's a clay needed for its unique properties, and companies on the west coast will often use a lot of clays that are mined out there. For other clay body ingredients like feldspars we have very few options so they may be sourced from farther away. With glaze materials we have virtually no choice in where the materials come from.

If you want truly local clay, you're probably going to have to dig your own.