Local Clay
by Jane Dodds

As a person who likes to grow things, I never warmed to the heavy clay soil that forms an impermeable top layer on the land I work until I was about two years into taking ceramics classes. At that point, for the first time, I looked at the gunk as an asset. But not for tilling — or eating, as the undernourished inmates of Sing Sing once did — but to mine for my own personal supply of clay. For once I had attained enough skill to throw something on the potter's wheel that was worth firing, I decided I would produce work out of the raw clay at hand rather than use the "dead" commercial clay shipped from parts unknown.

Well, that didn't quite work out. I did everything the Internet told me to do: I went to a likely spot (the bank of the creek that runs through my property), and dug down until I came to a layer of unvariegated blue. It looked like clay to me, so I conducted the test: I formed some of it into a ball, then rolled it into a narrow rope, and bent it around one of my fingers like a ring. It didn't break, so clay it was.

Unfortunately, after processing some 15 pounds of the stuff (a task performed over several days), I couldn't make even a doll-size pinch pot from it without having the clay break apart in my hands. Could something be added to the mix to increase its plasticity? One online forum mentioned that some potters in ancient Japan used urine for this purpose. Not wishing to go there, I consulted instead with Michael Humphreys, co-owner of the wondrous Hudson Valley Pottery, the studio where I had come to love working with clay. He confirmed that even though what I was working with was a kind of clay, I could forget about throwing it. His suggestion instead: to make a slip from it, slip being a watery version of clay that can be brushed onto clay objects prior to a firing to make surface effects or to enhance glazes (materials applied to clay that form a glass-like surface when fired).

I followed his advice and created a brown-grey slip; when fired, the pot on which it had been applied turned an orangey color. This color made sense once I learned that, while the composition of clay varies depending on specific site conditions, most of the surface clay in the Hudson Valley is of the low-fire, earthenware type — clay settled slowly out of the waters of Glacial Lake Albany, which covered our region from approximately 18,000 to 13,000 years ago. This clay was used for the millions of bricks that were produced at factories along the Hudson from the late 18th to the mid-20th centuries. Historically contemporary local pottery producers, such as Adam Caire, who made stoneware in Poughkeepsie in the mid-19th century, probably used clay mined in areas from beyond the terminal moraine of the last glacial ice sheet, such as southern Staten Island or New Jersey. Stoneware vitrifies at high temperatures and is a stronger clay than earthenware.

In any case, whatever disappointment I experienced at finding out we have little or no high-fire clay in our collective backyard has been relieved by the prospect of exploring the uses of the clay we have for surface effects or as an additive to higher-fire clay. Additional relief came with the discovery of just how plentiful is our other kind of "local clay": the many artists who live in our area who make both functional ceramics and ceramic sculpture. A sampling of these artists and the work they do reveals no regional style per se, but does reflect the diversity of work being done in clay today.

The light-filled workroom where classes are held at Hudson Valley Pottery in Rhinebeck's Montgomery Row doubles as Michael Humphreys' studio. Thus during a visit you may well catch him at work on a wheel, in addition to being able to see examples of his finished work in the adjacent Flux Gallery. Flux is one of the rare galleries — and certainly the only in our area — that shows ceramics only. In addition to Humphreys' clay works, the gallery presents a range of functional pottery by artists from across the country.

Humphreys feels it's important that his pots be both functional and affordable — understandably, since he studied ceramics with an apprentice of Warren Mackenzie, the key figure in the American Studio Pottery Movement, whose stated intention has always been to make "everyday pots." Humphreys' stoneware work is both everyday and extraordinary in its range of forms, at all scales, thrown or hand built — so much so that his "body of work" might be more aptly termed a non-traditional family of work. Subtle glazing effects are a constant quality. These Humphreys achieves by creating a deficit of oxygen when firing in the studio's gas kiln, a technique known as reduction firing.

Some ceramicists, such as Tim Rowan, use slips and glazes sparingly. Rowan, who likes to dig his own clay from various sites in the Northeast and beyond or get it from other noncommercial sources, is interested in seeing what the raw clay can do in combination with wood-fueled firing. Following a two-year ceramics apprenticeship in Bizen, a revered Japanese center for pottery making, Rowan returned to the U.S. and eventually built his own anagama-style kiln and studio in Stone Ridge. Anagama (tunnel) is the oldest style of kiln in Japan, and pieces fired in them are renowned for their natural ash glazes, in addition to the markings left by the "river of fire" that has bathed them. While Rowan's repertoire of forms — vessels, cups, boxes, and sculpture — are simple and hand built, their physical presence has a complex resonance because of the response of the minerals in the clay to the kiln atmosphere and the resulting markings left by the seven days of firing. Rowan's kiln also takes a week to load, a week to cool, and a week to unload and clean — not a process for the impatient.

The work of Maine native Ayumi Horie reflects a commitment to functional pottery and to the quiet comforts associated with, say, wrapping your hands around a beautiful handmade cup filled with hot tea. Horie believes ceramicists "need to talk more about the social function of pottery." However, pottery has not been all comfort to Horie. She developed tendonitis during her first year of ceramics study at Alfred University and permanent injury threatened if she continued to throw clay. Unwilling to give up wheel throwing, Horie devised a unique method of centering clay and throwing it dry. Using tools, she manipulates the clay in a way akin to the way wood is worked on a lathe.

Horie, who works in a studio housed in an old church in Cottekill, uses a dark red earthenware clay of her own recipe that she oxidation-fires in an electric kiln. (An oxidation firing atmosphere is produced when there is an excess of oxygen in the kiln.) Prior to firing, Horie applies white slip to the pieces and makes quick simple drawings of animals by scratching through the slip and adding tiny dashes of bright glazes. The effect overall is spontaneous and imperfect, a record of the moment rooted in Horie's acknowledged aesthetic source: Japan.

Like Horie, Woodstock artist Meg Oliver came to ceramics after a focus on printmaking, and she also creates loosely pictorial designs on her pot surfaces. Inspired by 17th-century Japanese textiles in which a piece of clothing in its entirety would function as a canvas for intricate designs, Oliver evokes landscapes through the stamping of patterns and washy application of glazes. She creates the stamps by making plaster molds of flowers, other plant matter, and various odds and ends. These are pressed into the porcelain clay of her pots prior to oxidation firing in an electric kiln. Oliver favors porcelain because of its clarity as a background color for her glaze effects, and the cleaner, brighter color qualities and translucent effects that are possible.

For Oliver, the physical interaction of hands and lips with pottery is why she makes it, rather than nonfunctional artworks that may become invisible as they are lived with over time. "Pots," observed Oliver, addressing their users but inadvertently speaking also for their makers, "have a way of eating into your life."

Contact information: timrowan.com, ayumihorie.com, missmegoliver.com; Michael Humphreys can be reached through hudsonvalleypottery.com.

Clockwise from top left: Meg Oliver, sugar jar, 4" high, Michael Humphreys, black vessel, 12", Ayumi Horie, teapot, 4 1/4", Tim Rowan, teabowl with wire, 4".

Pottery instruction in our area:

Barrett Clay Works: Workshops and classes for adults and children, private lessons, studio rental, communal membership options. 485 Main St., Poughkeepsie. (845) 471-2550 or barrettartcenter.org

Hudson Valley Pottery: Classes for adults and children, birthday parties. 6423 Montgomery St. Rhinebeck. (845) 876-3190 or hudsonvalleypottery.com

Women's Studio Workshop: Classes for adults, artist residency and fellowship programs and internships. PO Box 489, Rosendale. (845) 658-9133 or wsworkshop.org

Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild: Classes for adults and artist residency program. The Barn, Upper Byrdcliffe Road, Woodstock. (845) 679-2079 or woodstockguild.org