Making Clay

Artist Statement

Making Clay explores the process of creating clay from a rock to a usable form, all the way down to the structure of molecules in clay bodies. Stacked pots create a form of falling which parallels the journey of clay minerals from high mountain rocks to flat and low deposition. The patterns are inspired by black-on-white Southwestern pottery, and the concept was inspired by my thesis rocks, 1.7 Ga rocks from the Zuni Mountains in New Mexico, that are turning into clay due to their long exposure time at the surface.

The stairstep pattern mimics the shape of mountains. This pattern sits high at the top of the piece, creating the shape of minerals traveling topographically down settling into clay beds. The spiral design emulates movement through water. To make clay, rocks (particularly feldspars) break down both mechanically and chemically. The chemical process is called dissolution where ions from the broken down rock are transferred into solution which is typically surface water. The ions are then carried down streams and into rivers where they eventually settle when the energy is low enough. The mechanical process is rocks breaking apart through grinding, crashing into each other, and being transported via gravity (as in a rock fall). This process is visualized by the top pot of the middle stack where larger triangles break down into smaller and smaller triangles. The striped portion then shows the settling or deposition that allows large clay beds to form. The final pattern of triangles and dots represents the structure of clay on a crystal lattice level. Clays have layers of T (tetrahedra, triangle shape) and O (octahedra, circle shape) arranged in various layers. Clays that work well for ceramics are typically TO clays because they hold less water in their structure. TO clays are drawn as repeated layers of triangles and circles.

Setting out to make this piece, I intended to create one big pot, but quickly learned how difficult that would be. Plasticity, the ability of a material to be shaped and hold its new form, was a key issue with making a large pot. Increasing the water in a clay body decreases its plasticity. When making pieces, adding water is important, but with big pieces, taking too long to produce the piece adds large amounts of water. I found it difficult to make bigger forms quickly, so a lot of the large form attempts collapsed. I learned to pivot when the pieces I imagined making in my head were not going to be possible. Unfortunately, I made that choice late in the process, and it came down to the wire. I am thankful for classmates who collaborated to help me see the designs for each piece come to life.