Group E Lab Data: Week 3 (Pottery)

Process:

Our group’s process was rather different than the other groups’ because we were using clay from the Carleton Arboretum, gathered by geology and pottery students at Carleton, rather than the mass-produced combination clay used in most modern pottery studios. We began by first grinding arb clay that had been dried for months, and perhaps over a year, under rough stone bricks. When the clay was ground into a fine particulate, we removed larger stones and pieces of gravel before rehydrating the clay with freshwater. We rehydrated to the touch, so there were plenty of moments where we overestimated the amount of water we needed, and had to add more ground clay so the final product would not be too wet. When the clay body felt right, we formed it into a series of pots during the lab period that we processed the next day.

Challenges:

The first challenge that our group faced was rehydrating the dried clay. The ground clay powder has to have water added and worked into it before it can be formed into a workable clay body for forming a pot. However, all of us fell prey to overwatering the mixture even though we were adding moisture piecemeal, and had to grind up additional clay to balance out the composition of the clay body. 

The next difficulty came with forming. None of us had ever done ceramics before to a serious extent, so we had little inkling of how to actually shape a pot. None of us were able to get the desired form on the first go, and instead had to restart at least once to have a better balance between the pinch pot base and the coiled section of the pot. 

Data:

	Original	After 1 Day	Loss	Before Firing	Loss	After Firing	Loss
Weight	530g	564g	-34g	523g	41g	506g	17g
Height	73mm	72mm	1mm	71mm	1mm	72mm	-1mm
Diameter (rim)	57mm	57mm	0mm	57mm	0mm	56mm	1mm
Diameter (widest)	103mm	101mm	2mm	101mm	0mm	100mm	1mm
Wall Section	6mm	7mm	-1mm	7mm	0mm	5mm	2mm

	Original	After 1 Day	Loss	Before Firing	Loss	After Firing	Loss
Weight	543g	512g	32g	475g	37g	460	83
Height	7cm	6cm	1cm	6cm	0cm	6cm	0cm
Diameter (rim)	5cm	5cm	0cm	4.5cm	0.5cm	5cm	-0.5cm
Diameter (widest)	11cm	11cm	0cm	10cm	1cm	10cm	0cm
Wall Section	9.85mm	8.01mm	1.84mm	4.28mm	3.73mm	10.15mm	-5.87mm

	Original	After 1 Day	Loss	Before Firing	Loss	After Firing	Loss
Weight	517g	472g	45g			417g
Height	94mm	85mm	9mm			90.38mm
Diameter (rim)	47.5mm	42mm	5.5mm			65.79mm
Diameter (widest)	84mm	80mm	4mm			87.90mm
Wall Section	11.8mm	11.8mm	0mm			11.2mm

Post-Firing Reflection

After firing, all of our pots made it! Compared to other groups, it seems like the natural tempering in the arb clay makes a substantial improvement on survivability during the firing process. The color also closely resembles that of Anglo-Saxon pottery, which makes sense considering the similarities between Arb and English wild clays.