I spend a lot of time on a particular beach along the Pamlico River. Along this beach, there is a band of beautiful blue-gray clay nestled between layers of sand and tree roots. A long time ago, when I first discovered it I casually asked about it.
"Oh, that clay doesn't work. It crumbles when you fire it. Lots of people have tried."
I left it alone for years, more than a decade to be exact. After the pandemic I was called to come back to lead the program again, and I got to spend many more sunsets on that beautiful beach. My favorite thing to do is walk down to the beach and watch the sunset, wade in the water a bit and look for pretty driftwood. One day, I'm not sure why, I had the urge to play with some of that clay. It is soft and so smooth, and a gorgeous blue gray color. For some reason that is still unknown to me, I made a little patty out of it, and put the patty and a little chunk of the clay in my car to take home. It dried naturally in the back of my car.
Enter Keith, or as I call him, the Clay Wizard. I first met Keith in 2022 at the Piedmont Earthskills Gathering. I took his pottery class and began asking him about wild clay, with my river clay in mind. And then I remembered, those little bits were still in my car! I brought these tiny dried bits to him, wondering what he thought. He ground them, rehydrated them and made three tiny experimental pieces. I told him people had tried firing the clay before, but it never worked. He said, they probably used a modern kiln. Wild clay likes wood pit kilns, not modern electric ones. Keith kept track of those tiny pieces in the chaos of a giant wood pit kiln and when the firing was over, presented me with these tiny pieces of pottery. Success. The clay would fire.
You may or may not follow me on YouTube, but if you do, you might remember this video from a couple years ago when I harvested a bunch of that clay to try to use. I tried wedging it on the beach and it was an epic failure. The clay was SO sticky. I brought a big bag of the stuff to share to the Piedmont Earthskills gathering, hoping that someone else would have a solution to the sticky problem. A couple of people fought with it and two pieces came out of the pit kiln successfully. Eden made a really cute tiny bowl and Clinks made an oil lamp. I actually gave up and didn't make anything with it. It was looking like in order to use that clay in any functional way, I would have to dry it, grind it and then rehydrate it. Was I really willing to go that far for some clay from my favorite river?
Now this year. This year, at the Florida gathering, Keith changed up his class a bit. Instead of focusing on building, his focus was on teaching us to fire our pottery ourselves. Part of that process was drying, and this time we carefully dried our pottery around the fire so it was ready to fire sooner. To my delight, I could get my river clay to the right hydration level quickly by using a fire. After just a few minutes of drying and a few rounds of mixing, my clay was ready to wedge. It actually wedged really well and was easy to make pots with. My little pinch pot dried a little too quickly near some hot coals and got a crack in it. But I wanted to see how it fired, I didn't need a working vessel. So I pulled the chip out and fired it anyway. Keith always listens to the 'ring' a fired pot makes when you flick it. And even with the cracks, it makes a nice ring to his ear, which means it's a high quality clay.
Thanks to Keith, I'm back on my wild clay pottery journey. Now that I know how to fire on a small scale, I'm headed back to the river to make some pots. Maybe I'll be able to sit by the fire of my pit kiln and watch the sun set while my pots fire. Keep an eye out for a YouTube video, I'll be sure to share the journey.
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