Pottery time!

Playing with Grand Island Clay!

This summer, at Riverside-Salem United Church of Christ environmental chapel, a group (including me) did a great project that involved the clay soil of Grand Island.
Well. Grand Island's soil is mostly clay, a fact that annoys gardeners pretty much everywhere. So we dug some up and learned something about pottery. It was fun to do that. It reminded me of my childhood, when I played for hours in the mud and got delightfully covered with it.


Just recently, we fired the pottery in a hole in the ground. It was a fun process. Here are the pictures of the firing adventure.

Here are the pots, ready to be fired. These are most of the pots made by the group.

 

I made two pots. Here is one, on which I lots of fun with decorating.

 

Roger digs a hole. This will become our firing pit.

 

Here I am, ripping up newspaper, to be used for the fire.

 

I then place the pottery into the firing pit.

 

and cover it with the newspaper and other soft stuff

 

Roger and Carol add fire starter to the hole

 

The fire starts to glow and grow

 

Big, big fire!!!! The pottery is being fired.

 

More later!!!