Stelios Zacharias wrote:

Dear all,

I was fortunate enough to have been at a school in the UK with an
active ceramics teacher, some wheels and two kilns, and got
bitten by the bug. Unfortunately, everything was a little too
pre-chewed, meaning that I never had to collect and prepare clay
and oxides or mix my own glazes.

Now that I am on my own, I am finding it a little daunting, but
willing to go for it.

After school, while on military service up in the mountains
bordering Bulgaria, I managed to collect some clay in the wild
from a river, dried it out on the roof of the barracks, and made
some pots. These I put in a big empty petroleum style barrel (the
metal ones which always seem to hang around ports waiting to be
driven into and explode in "action" films). I filled this up with
dried grasses and sticks and torched it.

I doubt the temperature got very high, and I only kept the fire
going about half an hour. The pots that did not explode came out
harder than they went in, but porous.

I have now gathered some clay again in the wild and spent some
time putting it through seives to remove organic material and
stones, and I have had a go at making some pots.

These I have burnished with the back of a tea-spoon. On some I
have put some coloured slips that I made with coloured stones
(powdered in pestle and mortar) and very wet clay.

Burnishing over the slips has made some of the colours nice and
vivid.

Questions:
If I find another barrel, should I try to fire the pots in there
again? The other options are a wood fired fire-place in a country
house (but I have to wait for the winter) or an open fire in
someone's garden. Will any of these firing ideas make the clay
non-poous to the extent that the pots will hold water / wine?

I know that ideally I should go buy some clay, rather than
collect from fields, and possibly go buy a kiln, but that is in
the future.

Oh well. All comments, questions, ideas, etc. welcome!

I think, to get the pots waterproof, you will need a kiln, and maybe
some glazes, or preferably both. But i think your attempts are
admirable. Someone's fireplace and someone's bonfire in the garden will
not really work out well, you will have too many broken pots. The fire
is too hot too suddenly, in a kiln you can get it up there slowly. Get
some pottery books, or some classes somewhere and you are on your way!

Good luck, Monika ( from Austria)

--
Monika Schleidt

www.schleidt.org/mskeramik