Ceramic artists in this day and age have it relatively easy when it comes to obtaining materialsfor their craft. They can go online and easily purchase just about any clay or glaze imaginable and have it delivered to their doors.
Still, for many potters, the idea of being more closely tied to their materials resonates. Some process their own clays right from their own backyards in an effort to lessen their environmental impact. Some just like the challenge. Others might want to save some cash.
In today's post, potter and glaze expert John Britt explains how he has successfully developed glazes from materials found in roadway cuts. He also shares some resources for finding out just what exactly you'll find in the roadside cuts in your areas. And of course, he shares his roadside recipes. - Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor
Over the years, things have gotten easier for potters. We don’t have to find and dig our own clay, transport it to our studio on a
mule, slake it down, sieve it, dry it and then wedge it, just to make cup. Now we can simply buy an amazing variety of premade and pretested clay bodies online. When glazing, we don’t have to find a feldspar deposit, mine it, test it, and
process it. We don’t have to figure out all our own glaze recipes, we can simply search the Internet for recipes with detailed mixing and firing instructions or just purchase ready-made glazes in clean plastic bottles.
Developing your own glazes from natural materials has become much easier too, but you still get the satisfaction of making unique glazes that don’t come from neat plastic containers. Usually the
hardest part is collecting and processing the natural materials. Thankfully this can now be done simply and easily.
I am sure you have noticed while driving on the roadways that roads have been cut through amazing rock formations many feet thick on almost any interstate. Smaller (and safer) secondary roads have them as well. These road cuts reveal the millions
of years of deposition and metamorphosis in a single glance and can be accessed with little effort.
The only problem is identifying what rock you are collecting, especially if you don’t know much about geology. But this is easily overcome with an outstanding series of books called Roadside Geology. You can get these books for most states and
they explain in detail the geology of the roadways in that state. For example you can get the Roadside Geology of Ohio or of Virginia, etc. It will locate outcroppings and list the type of rocks we want and then all you have to do it stop and
collect your samples. These books are outstanding because they often also give you the history of the area. For example in the “Roadside Geology to Ohio” there is an excellent history of the pottery industry in eastern Ohio, how the
rivers and natural deposits of clay and gas created this booming industry in the 1800’s and why it died.
I often collect natural glaze materials on various trips I take and then label and save the material until I have time to process it. The processing is actually pretty easy, depending on the material, if you are not in a hurry, have a bisque kiln
and a ball mill. For example, clay or shale is pretty easy to process by slaking it down or ball milling, but processing feldspar can be a bit more challenging because the bonds in the rock are very strong. But even this is not that hard to do
with a bisque kiln. For example: if I have a five pound chunk of feldspar, normally what I would do it is to crush it with a sledge hammer until it was in small enough pieces and then use a hammer mill or a smaller hammer to grind it up. But an
easier way is to just put it in a bisque bowl and run it through the bisque if I have any extra space during a firing. Then, when it comes out, the feldspar will start to crumble.
What is happening is that the bonds in the rock that have formed over thousands or millions of years are being broken with the heat and then not allowed to reform as the cooling is so quick, so the rock starts to fall apart. After the bisque firing,
I usually see what I can knock off the big chunk and then if it is still hard underneath, I put it through the bisque again. Large chunks of rock possess a lot of mass so they don’t get completely heated in a quick bisque and you have to
fire them again to heat the whole rock chunk up. After I get it into smaller pieces, I put those in a ball mill for several hours. Then I screen the material from the ball mill and decide if I need to redo the larger chunks or simply throw them
out.
There are other ways to find out where materials are other than the Roadside Geology book series. For example you may just come across an unknown outcropping at a local road cut. I often collect shale in Johnson City, Tennessee, on the east ramp onto
State Route 381. It is where 381 and 36 (a.k.a. North Roan Street) intersect. I saw this outcropping which is just below a new General Shale Brick Headquarters. I did not know what type of shale this was so I searched on Google and found this
abstract which showed a map of outcroppings of various types of shales in the area, many of which are on the roadways.
You can also search on the US Geologic Survey (USGS) or just go to your local office of the USGS and ask them for information on what is in your area. There are also offices of the US Soil Survey or Department of the Interior that may be able to help
you. They will often have extensive maps of your area and will probably already know the composition of the clays and rocks in the area. If not, they can have them tested for you. Another good source for local rock and mineral deposits is a local
university geology program. They may have academic papers on local rocks and minerals.
Black outcropping in a Google Earth image. You just look up “3103 North Roan Street, Johnson City TN” on Google and then click “Maps”. (It is near Scully’s Bar and Grill and Ken’s Shopping Center.) Then take the
little yellow person on the left zoom arrow and place him on the ramp to 381. That will make it turn into a photo and you can navigate up the ramp by clicking the white circle. When you get up a way and see the car, make the viewer turn to the
right and you will see a black outcropping which is the Sevier Shale.
Other materials I collect include clays, limestone granite, gneiss etc. One really easy way to find partially processed local materials is at the bottom of my driveway. I live in a rural area and have a gravel road and driveway. The “gravel”
on the road is a ground granite which is mined and processed by Vulcan Materials, a stone supplier for road bond and rock. I contacted them and got a detailed analysis of their stone.
You can get this rock in varying sizes and mixtures. It is essentially ground up granite and if you have a driveway that is on a slope, the fine particles (silt) will wash down the driveway and deposit just like it would happen in nature after thousands
of years of erosion. It is actually a small alluvial deposit.
These found and processed materials can be then be supplemented with store-bought materials until you have the necessary ingredients to make a glaze. You can purchase whiting, dolomite, silica, or more unusual materials like rice hull ash, etc. Whatever
you need to give you a glass former, some fluxes and some refractory materials.
If you still want unique materials to flux your glaze you can collect various types of wood ash. This is pretty easy if you have a wood stove.
You can use your wood stove to process specific types of wood simply by cleaning it out and then only burning one type of wood at a time. That will allow you to collect different types of wood ash for testing. For example, if you want oak ash you
can just burn oak in the stove and collect the ashes. Or if you want pine ash, only burn pine wood. Or if you want pine bark you can either peel off all the bark from your pine wood or purchase various types of bark chips from a garden store and
burn those. Plant and grass ash are a bit harder because you need to burn a lot and so that may be better done in a brick pit outside. (you want a brick pit because you don’t want other materials getting into the ash, like dirt from the
ground or iron from a metal trash can, etc.)
Other ways of getting materials would be to use cullet or crushed glass bottles. Some people use pop or wine bottles. Brown bottles contain iron oxide while the blue ones contain small amounts of cobalt oxide. You can also find recyclers who process
recycled florescent bulbs or medical glass. Another option would be to use contact large suppliers for one pound samples of their materials, like pumice, which comes in various mesh sizes. For example Hess Pumice (http://www.hesspumice.com/) sells Grade F, 325, ½ and FFFF. The Pacer Corporation, which mines Custer Feldspar, sells it in various grades (mesh sizes), e.g. 200 m, chips, etc.
Frank Hohenstein’s method is to use granite countertops cut-offs. He just gets the scrap pieces, crushes and sieves them into different mesh sizes, e.g. 100 m, 80 m, etc. Then he simply substitutes the crushed “granite” for the feldspar
in the glaze recipe to give it a unique look. It turns out that “Granite” countertops aren’t actually granite but rather various types of polished feldspars.
Once you have the materials you can start to run basic melt tests, progression and line blends or triaxial blends. These will give you a wonderful range of glazes from your natural materials with little effort.
Disclaimer: Prospecting for materials along the highway may be dangerous or not permitted. Attempt at your own risk and use caution. Find out the laws in your area before attempting any digging.Recipes:
John Britt is the author of The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glazes: Glazing & Firing at Cone 10. For more information, see www.johnbrittpottery.com.
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Published Jul 31, 2023
Still, for many potters, the idea of being more closely tied to their materials resonates. Some process their own clays right from their own backyards in an effort to lessen their environmental impact. Some just like the challenge. Others might want to save some cash.
In today's post, potter and glaze expert John Britt explains how he has successfully developed glazes from materials found in roadway cuts. He also shares some resources for finding out just what exactly you'll find in the roadside cuts in your areas. And of course, he shares his roadside recipes. - Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor
Over the years, things have gotten easier for potters. We don’t have to find and dig our own clay, transport it to our studio on a mule, slake it down, sieve it, dry it and then wedge it, just to make cup. Now we can simply buy an amazing variety of premade and pretested clay bodies online. When glazing, we don’t have to find a feldspar deposit, mine it, test it, and process it. We don’t have to figure out all our own glaze recipes, we can simply search the Internet for recipes with detailed mixing and firing instructions or just purchase ready-made glazes in clean plastic bottles.
Developing your own glazes from natural materials has become much easier too, but you still get the satisfaction of making unique glazes that don’t come from neat plastic containers. Usually the hardest part is collecting and processing the natural materials. Thankfully this can now be done simply and easily.I am sure you have noticed while driving on the roadways that roads have been cut through amazing rock formations many feet thick on almost any interstate. Smaller (and safer) secondary roads have them as well. These road cuts reveal the millions of years of deposition and metamorphosis in a single glance and can be accessed with little effort.
The only problem is identifying what rock you are collecting, especially if you don’t know much about geology. But this is easily overcome with an outstanding series of books called Roadside Geology. You can get these books for most states and they explain in detail the geology of the roadways in that state. For example you can get the Roadside Geology of Ohio or of Virginia, etc. It will locate outcroppings and list the type of rocks we want and then all you have to do it stop and collect your samples. These books are outstanding because they often also give you the history of the area. For example in the “Roadside Geology to Ohio” there is an excellent history of the pottery industry in eastern Ohio, how the rivers and natural deposits of clay and gas created this booming industry in the 1800’s and why it died.
I often collect natural glaze materials on various trips I take and then label and save the material until I have time to process it. The processing is actually pretty easy, depending on the material, if you are not in a hurry, have a bisque kiln and a ball mill. For example, clay or shale is pretty easy to process by slaking it down or ball milling, but processing feldspar can be a bit more challenging because the bonds in the rock are very strong. But even this is not that hard to do with a bisque kiln. For example: if I have a five pound chunk of feldspar, normally what I would do it is to crush it with a sledge hammer until it was in small enough pieces and then use a hammer mill or a smaller hammer to grind it up. But an easier way is to just put it in a bisque bowl and run it through the bisque if I have any extra space during a firing. Then, when it comes out, the feldspar will start to crumble.
What is happening is that the bonds in the rock that have formed over thousands or millions of years are being broken with the heat and then not allowed to reform as the cooling is so quick, so the rock starts to fall apart. After the bisque firing, I usually see what I can knock off the big chunk and then if it is still hard underneath, I put it through the bisque again. Large chunks of rock possess a lot of mass so they don’t get completely heated in a quick bisque and you have to fire them again to heat the whole rock chunk up. After I get it into smaller pieces, I put those in a ball mill for several hours. Then I screen the material from the ball mill and decide if I need to redo the larger chunks or simply throw them out.
There are other ways to find out where materials are other than the Roadside Geology book series. For example you may just come across an unknown outcropping at a local road cut. I often collect shale in Johnson City, Tennessee, on the east ramp onto State Route 381. It is where 381 and 36 (a.k.a. North Roan Street) intersect. I saw this outcropping which is just below a new General Shale Brick Headquarters. I did not know what type of shale this was so I searched on Google and found this abstract which showed a map of outcroppings of various types of shales in the area, many of which are on the roadways.
You can also search on the US Geologic Survey (USGS) or just go to your local office of the USGS and ask them for information on what is in your area. There are also offices of the US Soil Survey or Department of the Interior that may be able to help you. They will often have extensive maps of your area and will probably already know the composition of the clays and rocks in the area. If not, they can have them tested for you. Another good source for local rock and mineral deposits is a local university geology program. They may have academic papers on local rocks and minerals.
Black outcropping in a Google Earth image. You just look up “3103 North Roan Street, Johnson City TN” on Google and then click “Maps”. (It is near Scully’s Bar and Grill and Ken’s Shopping Center.) Then take the little yellow person on the left zoom arrow and place him on the ramp to 381. That will make it turn into a photo and you can navigate up the ramp by clicking the white circle. When you get up a way and see the car, make the viewer turn to the right and you will see a black outcropping which is the Sevier Shale.
Other materials I collect include clays, limestone granite, gneiss etc. One really easy way to find partially processed local materials is at the bottom of my driveway. I live in a rural area and have a gravel road and driveway. The “gravel” on the road is a ground granite which is mined and processed by Vulcan Materials, a stone supplier for road bond and rock. I contacted them and got a detailed analysis of their stone.
You can get this rock in varying sizes and mixtures. It is essentially ground up granite and if you have a driveway that is on a slope, the fine particles (silt) will wash down the driveway and deposit just like it would happen in nature after thousands of years of erosion. It is actually a small alluvial deposit.
These found and processed materials can be then be supplemented with store-bought materials until you have the necessary ingredients to make a glaze. You can purchase whiting, dolomite, silica, or more unusual materials like rice hull ash, etc. Whatever you need to give you a glass former, some fluxes and some refractory materials.
If you still want unique materials to flux your glaze you can collect various types of wood ash. This is pretty easy if you have a wood stove.
You can use your wood stove to process specific types of wood simply by cleaning it out and then only burning one type of wood at a time. That will allow you to collect different types of wood ash for testing. For example, if you want oak ash you can just burn oak in the stove and collect the ashes. Or if you want pine ash, only burn pine wood. Or if you want pine bark you can either peel off all the bark from your pine wood or purchase various types of bark chips from a garden store and burn those. Plant and grass ash are a bit harder because you need to burn a lot and so that may be better done in a brick pit outside. (you want a brick pit because you don’t want other materials getting into the ash, like dirt from the ground or iron from a metal trash can, etc.)
Other ways of getting materials would be to use cullet or crushed glass bottles. Some people use pop or wine bottles. Brown bottles contain iron oxide while the blue ones contain small amounts of cobalt oxide. You can also find recyclers who process recycled florescent bulbs or medical glass. Another option would be to use contact large suppliers for one pound samples of their materials, like pumice, which comes in various mesh sizes. For example Hess Pumice (http://www.hesspumice.com/) sells Grade F, 325, ½ and FFFF. The Pacer Corporation, which mines Custer Feldspar, sells it in various grades (mesh sizes), e.g. 200 m, chips, etc.
Frank Hohenstein’s method is to use granite countertops cut-offs. He just gets the scrap pieces, crushes and sieves them into different mesh sizes, e.g. 100 m, 80 m, etc. Then he simply substitutes the crushed “granite” for the feldspar in the glaze recipe to give it a unique look. It turns out that “Granite” countertops aren’t actually granite but rather various types of polished feldspars.
Once you have the materials you can start to run basic melt tests, progression and line blends or triaxial blends. These will give you a wonderful range of glazes from your natural materials with little effort.
Disclaimer: Prospecting for materials along the highway may be dangerous or not permitted. Attempt at your own risk and use caution. Find out the laws in your area before attempting any digging. Recipes:John Britt is the author of The Complete Guide to High-Fire Glazes: Glazing & Firing at Cone 10. For more information, see www.johnbrittpottery.com.
**First published in 2011.
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