Craftmanship at the union of man and the rest of nature.

[Wes Rolley]

I am nearing the end of a year's subscription to Orion magazine.  I'm not sure that I will renew. But, the online version of the magazine features an interesting video that I felt worth passing on.

Stone River: The Passion of Jon Piasecki

An Orion original video

Orion contributor Jon Piasecki spends his days moving -- and thinking about -- stones and how he can use them to save the world. An original Orion video production. (Read Piasecki's January/February 2008 article "The Nature of Walls".)

Worth a view if you have the bandwidth and 16 minutes.
Link: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/audio-video/item/stone_river/

-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com/ -- Tel: 408.778.3024

[bill geisinger]

I don't say this often Fucking inspiring!

--
Photo log at: http://claycraft.blogspot.com/
To unsubscribe send email to Claycraft-...@googlegroups.com

[Paul Herman]

Wes,

Thanks for sending that link. I've built a lot of different things out of stone, and can see that Jon is a great stone mason. He loves his material. Wonderful path he is building there. Very inspiring, and makes me want to get the old Chevy fired up and go find a load of rocks.

I can recall several places around the hills here where there are old stone walls, mostly built by sheep herders I think.

Rock on,

Paul Herman

Great Basin Pottery

Doyle, California US

www.greatbasinpottery.com/

[curly...@comcast.net]

Thank you so much. This is very nice. 

--

[Wes Rolley]

Maybe I relate to this because we have turned our hillside half acres
into an orchard. Every time my wife says to put a tree "there" I dig
up a rock... or three.

I've done a lot of terracing.

Anyone know a pottery use for thoroughly weathered serpentine?

[curly...@comcast.net]

Thank you very much. This is sooooo....... nice.

[CRAIG]

Thanks Wes!! This is another great link from you... I'm still in a daze from the bizen bowl, I've made up 300lbs. of a mid fire red clay.
Make Good Pots
~Craig
New London MN
http://woodfiredpottery.blogspot.com/

[Wes Rolley]

Craig,
I will try to do you another favor. I have multiple catalogs from
Bizen exhibits. I will scan and post (somewhere) three images of
similar works. One by Fujiwara Kei, one by Kansshige Too and one by
Yamamoto Toshu. All were recognized as living national treasures in
Japan. All used essentially the same clay and similar firing
techniques for unglazed work (yakishime). But the feeling of their
works is so distinctively different that it is all but impossible to
mistake one for the other.

[rickma...@comcast.net]

The shrinkage rate for Bizen clay is around 30%.  Yamamoto Toshu"s second son told us about it on a visit to him.

This shrinkage rate accounts for the large size that the chawan that Fujiwara Kei makes in the Potters of Japan video that Richard Peeler made in the mid sixties.  While visiting a friend who was apprenticing to the son of Kaneshige Toyo   i got to see a "important cultural property" flower container made by Kaneshige Toyo.  It was an amazing piece just sitting next to the tokonoma in a room in the family house.  This was back in 1982.

 

 

Rick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wes Rolley" <wro...@charter.net>
To: "ClayCraft" <clay...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 9:58:58 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: *ClayCraft* Craftmanship at the union of man and the rest of  nature.

[Lee]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 12:23 PM, <rickma...@comcast.net> wrote:
> The shrinkage rate for Bizen clay is around 30%.  Yamamoto Toshu"s second
> son told us about it on a visit to him.

Craig was talking about 80% OM4 and 20% Redart. That should shrink a bunch.

--
Lee Love in Minneapolis
http://mingeisota.blogspot.com/
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a
faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift." -- Albert Einstein

[rickma...@comcast.net]

That should crack like Bizen is wont to do as well!

 

YMMV,

Rick

[CRAIG]

Rick: I think you are right!! I'm going to keep that clay for smaller pots... it should keep me on my best behavior.   You wouldn't have any bizen like formulas perchance?

Make Good Pots
~Craig
New London MN
http://woodfiredpottery.blogspot.com/

[CRAIG]

Wes... thanks I'll keep my eyes open.

Make Good Pots
~Craig
New London MN
http://woodfiredpottery.blogspot.com/

[rickma...@comcast.net]

Craig, unfortunately I do not.  I did have the opportunity to buy clay from Bizen and have it shipped home, but by the time I got it to a port city from Imbe it would have been waaayyy expensive and then there was the matter of shipping from Japan to USA and attendant costs to get it off the dock and into my truck.  The clay itself was already about 10 times what I pay for clay here from the local supplier.

 

If I come up with a formula I will send it along.

[Lee]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 6:07 PM, <rickma...@comcast.net> wrote:

> shipping from Japan to USA and attendant costs to get it off the dock and
> into my truck.  The clay itself was already about 10 times what I pay for
> clay here from the local supplier.

What I bought cost about what clay costs here, which makes it 3 times
as expensive for Mashiko Nami. I bought the cone 6 Bizen clay.

This is John Baymore's recipe:

Bizen Type Clay For Woodfiring:

Goldart 50
AP Green 10
Hawthorn 5
Flint 5
C-6 Spar 5
Sand 10
Dirt/Pebbles 1
Redart 15

Here is Matrix2000 analysis for Bizen Clay( I have it in Glazechem,
but not on this computer):


Percentage Analysis

100.00 % Na2O


Bizen Clay

Mol. Weight: 462.37

Category Clay Fill Oxides Al2O3

Molecular Analysis:

K20 0.105 Al2O3 1.000 SiO2 4.823

Na2O 0.142 Fe2O3 0.092 LOI 1.682

CaO 0.055

MgO 0.098


Percentage Analysis

62.65 % SiO2
22.05 % Al2O3
2.14 % K2O
1.90 % Na2O
0.86 % MgO
0.67 % CaO
3.19 % Fe2O3

6.55 % L.O.I.


--

[Louis Katz]

I have never thrown bizen clay nor have I a real good idea of what it looks like.

http://www.tamucc.edu/~lkatz/LK/kilnsasart/OutOfKiln/pages/e.htm

This pot was made floor sweepings and scraps cone 6-8 soda in graduate school. I have a clay body that takes cone 10 and is a bit more fused and dark but reminds me of this one.

1 redart

1 ball (KT1-4 or OM4)

1 EPK

This also fits our reduction glazes well. I never would have figured it.

It might not hold up to a long firing, but it has surprised me at cone 12 in soda

A variation that I like but have not used much replaces the redart with newman red. Better seems to be 

Newman Red 1 ( this is a great unrefined cone sixish clay)

Haw Bond 1

EPK 1

If I had any I would probably use some raunchier fireclay. The top body I use without grog, but mix in chicken grits ( I try to have both NC and MT varieties but I am out of MT stuff) I am hoping to switch over to some more local decomposed granite and I want a load of Texas Kaolin. So it goes.

[Fredrick Paget]

There is a veyr good chance that the Agricultural inspecters at the
port of entry would confiscate the Bizen clay as it is unprocessed
earth in their eyes and forbidden to import because of fear of plant
diseases or animal disease too.
When I used to import plants I had to clean the plants of all traces
of soil. I used to have an import license. Importing soil is
forbidden.
Fred
--
Twin Dragon Studio
Mill Valley, CA, USA

[rickma...@comcast.net]

Fred,

Actually it is processed and in plastic bags.  Washington state is not as worried as Califronia is on that score either.      The Yamamoto family runs a clay processing business in Imbe.
Even dry it would have been processed.  Of course they would never get the chance due to the EXTREEME cost of the clay and shipping  (I paid $175.00 per 20 Kg bag for Porcelain in Japan in 1996 and the bizen clay would be in that neighborhood at least).

Rick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fredrick Paget" <fred...@well.com>
To: clay...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 9:46:57 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: *ClayCraft* Bizen clay

[bill geisinger]

Rick and all,

I purchased clay from Japan in 2005 porcelain specifically for a workshop at the college and it was no where near the price you are quoting. We bought from the manufacturer on Kyushu it was sold as clay so there was no import problems as far as unprocessed dirt. even in crazy California. The clay ended up being a similar price to clay in California, with some more hassles. We had to go to customs and pick it up in Oakland, Two month waiting time because it was on the slow boat. Maybe some guy pulling it behind his sailboat.If I remember correctly the cost was a 12Kg pug was $18 with all the costs included. We had to buy a ton minimum to bring the shipping costs down per pound. I believe shipping 1/2 ton would have been the same price. There was the wire transfer and hassles with phone calls and faxes to get it correct. I could not believe how inexpensive it was. Yes I would do it again. Yes I had help in Japan with the contact. It was also work on their part making phone calls and arranging the shipping.

I regularly every year purchase a ton of grolleg porcelain from Clayart Center in your neck of the woods Rick. What I save on taxes, pays for some of the shipping and it comes right to the studio door and is generally parked by the driver exactly where it needs to be. Cost about $14 per bag. This is also a wet material no work involved. I think for myself the ClayArt grolleg^10 is very similar to the Japanese porcelain in it's working characteristics.

Yamamoto also gave me a pug of bizen clay in 2000 and I had no problem coming through customs. In 2006 Yamamoto gave me two different types of Bizen clay to try at home. It was a challenge to go through customs but I did prevail.It had to be verified. Fortunately I had all the product information in two languages. Not the ingredients just verification it was clay to make ceramic art products. I could not carry it on the plane (who wants to hand carry 24 Kg of clay) I would suggest you get clay from a distributor like Yamamoto or Maruni, get samples and try different clays they are like ours, varied between who make it..

bill in sebastopol

[Louis Katz]

Patricia Fay had a problem getting clay through customs once. Make sure it looks like the product that it is. Receipts, packaging if possible.
Louis

--- On Tue, 11/24/09, bill geisinger <geis...@deanza.edu> wrote:

> From: bill geisinger <geis...@deanza.edu>
> Subject: Re: *ClayCraft* Bizen clay
> To: clay...@googlegroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 8:41 AM
> Rick and all,
>
> I purchased clay from Japan in 2005 porcelain specifically
> for a workshop at the college and it was no where near the
> price you are quoting. We bought from the manufacturer on
> Kyushu it was sold as clay so there was no import problems
> as far as unprocessed dirt. even in crazy California. The
> clay ended up being a similar price to clay in California,
> with some more hassles. We had to go to customs and pick it
> up in Oakland, Two month waiting time because it was on the
> slow boat. Maybe some guy pulling it behind his sailboat.If
> I remember correctly the cost was a 12Kg pug was $18 with
> all the costs included. We had to buy a ton minimum to bring
> the shipping costs down per pound. I believe shipping 1/2
> ton would have been the same price. There was the wire
> transfer and hassles with phone calls and faxes to get it
> correct. I could not believe how inexpensive it was. Yes I

> would do it again. Yes I had help in Japan with the contact..

[Jesse]

Here's a recipe I've used in a few woodfirings, from a Simon Levin
workshop:
XX Saggar 65
Custer 15
Newman's Red 20
Fine Grog 3
for c10

I've gotten some nice results, depending on the firing this clay can
produce browns(!), purples, and reds on flashed or protected areas,
and usually ash deposits are yellow to olive green(oxidation-to-
reduction atmospheres).
My June firing I mixed up a 50/50 local brick clay with xx sag and got
results that were bizinesque. I just finished another day and a half
c10+ firing, mostly porcelains and light stoneware bodies in this
one. Waiting for that kiln to cool can be a real... exercise in self-
control. I did just snake a couple pieces out of an area I know cools
down quicker- the flue between the firebox and the ware chamber-
looking good. I'll be posting some pics of the unload after
thanksgiving.

Jesse in Maine

[rickma...@comcast.net]

Bill, the clay that I wanted from Yamamoto was the top line Bizen clay, we checked into the cost of shipping to the nearest port in Japan and that was nearly the cost of the clay then there was shipping to the USA after that, this was in '98 when the yen was strong like it is today.  The 30% shrinkage was the kicker in many ways for me as the cost of clay is not that important if the resultying product is good.

 

The Porcelain I bought was not the cheapest I could find, I wanted to try it and had a budget to spend (from Monbusho - Japanese Ministry of Education who gave me the fellowship to work in Japan in '96), i don't recall saying that the price I paid was the cost for any or all porcelain in my post.

 

I agree Clay Art Center has excellent products, the owners are potters, not business men like the place in Seattle and many other clay suppliers.

 

Well I have to run to class so this ramble will be cut short.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

 

Rick

 

----- Original Message -----
From: "bill geisinger" <geis...@deanza.edu>
To: clay...@googlegroups.com

[CRAIG]

Lee; Louis, and Jesse: thanks for the recipes it gives me a really good starting point... I'm still trying for another firing before winter.  So new clays maybe in the spring firing.

Make Good Pots
~Craig
New London MN
http://woodfiredpottery.blogspot.com/