Mud

What a beautiful day it was today. Matt and I took a wander across the valley to the woodland opposite.

At the top of the valley there's a lot of granular red clay just beneath the soil and at the bottom of the valley, there's a little stream. This stream is all that remains of what must have been a huge river in prehistoric times which created the valley that winds away into the distance. There's a lot of smoother, ochre coloured clay in the banks of the stream. I've fired some tests before and it comes out a light terracotta colour, but I haven't done enough with it to know its firing range yet.

Matt took a ball of it back to the workshop and made a couple of pots. I've got some in slurry form that Joe mixed for me a couple of weeks ago and Matt's pots inspired me to slop the slurry into a plaster mold to dry out. It should be ready to use by the end of the week.

I'd love to be able to use clay from the site and at some stage in the distant future I'd like to move workshop to a place where I can dig my own clay. It's all a bit of a pipe dream at the moment, but one day I hope to achieve it. There's a lot of fine earthenware in this county.

My camera batteries ran out so I haven't got any shots of the jars I've been making this week, but here's a picture of some primroses in the woods, my favourite flower and some derelict farm equipment in the adjoining field. I love the old crane.