MAKING CLAY
The clay I mix by hand is a blend of ingredients from NC, GA, TN, MO, ID and CA. Ten percent of the body is a wild red clay I dig in Asheville, NC - it’s not a lot, but enough to add a nice, funky “tooth” to the clay. The wild clay is blunged, screened & then mixed with dry commercial clays to a thick batter consistency. The slurry is shoveled into drying racks and left for 2-3 weeks to air dry and become useful. I mix 1200 lbs of dry material in each batch which yields about 1600 lbs wet. I continue to search for wild clays closer to home in GA.