Process
In the fall of 2024 I excavated roughly 200 tons of beautiful Catawba Valley clay from Morganton, NC. This deposit was used by Burlon Craig in the 1950’s and his son Don Craig shared it with my friend Steve Blankenbeker 20 some years ago. Don referred to it as the ‘Legendary James Bottom Clay’ due to it’s exceptional working properties straight out of the ground. After months of sampling the deposit with the help of Kim Ellington, we located a grey stoneware clay and a white fireclay. My current clay body is a 50/50 blend of the 2 clays. None of this would have been possible without the generousity of the Foothills Conservancy of NC.
Each piece of pottery is made by hand on the potter's wheel. The raw clay is soaked, mixed and de-aried in a pugmill before turning. Small stones are left in to give each pot a bit more character.
The glazes that I use are made from scratch with local materials whenever possible. Wood ash, granite, schist, feldspar and clay are the most common materials in my glaze recipes. The alkaline glaze that has been used for over 200 years in the Catawba Valley is made from 8 parts wood ash, 4 parts crushed glass and 2 parts clay slip.
The work is fired in a large wood burning kiln that sits in a valley in the foothills of North Carolina. Technically an anagama, the kiln desgin does borrow aspects from the traditional groundhog kiln.
Loading the kiln takes three to four days and between 400-600 pots depending on size.
My typical firing schedule lasts 48 hours. The pots are slowly heated up to a maximum temperature of around 2400 degrees by manually feeding wood into the kiln. Firings are exhausting and require constant attention from a team of friends but the results can't be achieved any other way.
Finished work unloaded from the wood kiln. Pots are sanded and washed before heading out into the world.