Working with Wild Clay

As she explains below, our Artist in Residence, Emma Przygrodzka, has been working on site with clay from the dig:

The discoveries from the excavated well continue to reveal more about life over 1,100 years ago. It was exciting to be given some wild clay from its lower levels to experiment with.

I’ve tempered the clay with hay collected from beneath the finds tents and used it to hand-build a small series of vessels. Working with wild clay has given me a whole new appreciation for the people making pottery in the Saxon period. It’s an unpredictable material, and every stage so far has been a challenge.

The vessels are now drying before their first firing. I don’t know how this clay will behave in the kiln. Natural clays vary enormously in their composition and, depending on the balance of minerals they contain, they can fire well, warp, crack or begin to slump at higher temperatures. I’ll only find out once they’re fired.

For the next batch, I’m planning to experiment with adding sand and seeds as temper. Potters have long mixed naturally occurring materials such as sand, crushed shell, grit, chopped straw and other plant fibres into clay to improve its workability and help reduce shrinkage and cracking during drying and firing.