local clay – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis

BC Wild Clay

Gillian McMillan — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 05:29:45 +0000

At our November TriCity Potters’ meeting we learned of Ilena Lee Cramer’s enthusiasm for Wild Clay. Most of us work with clay that has been processed and mixed to specific requirements and pugged, bagged and boxed for us. But Ilena is fascinated with the properties of locally found clay, here in BC. With funding from a unique artists residency from St andrews Wesley United Church in Vancouver Ilena has searched out sources of clay, particularly that which was used to make bricks for some well-known Vancouver buildings.

https://ilenaleepottery.com

The presentation began with a slide show of the brickworks that existed here in the Lower Mainland. Sadly these closed long ago, as the extraction of clay became less profitable, although there are plenty of clay sites still to be found. Many bricks labelled Clayburn were made from Sumas mountain clay. Clayburn Village was built with locally made bricks and housed the factory workers. It is a tourist destination near Abbotsford today.

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MCR/article/download/16988/22990?inline=1

Another well-known brick factory was in Haney (Maple Ridge). Haney Museum, to be found next to Haney Bypass, was the clay mine manager’s house and sits at the base of the clay pit. We saw a photo of its fine fireplace, built with juicy klinker (almost melted kiln bricks). There’s a mural depicting the brick-making process on the back of the building.

The Marine Building in Vancouver was built using Clayburn Brick. We also heard that there was a huge brickworks on Anvil Island in Howe Sound, where barges took bricks to the city.

Finally, Ilena was pleased to tell us about the Port Moody bricks found at the end of our Inlet. I believe more research will happen! For us clay fanatics the discussion of bricks and wild clay is fascinating.

After a coffee break and a chance to consider some results of our October group soda firing, Ilena showed us slides and examples of how to research the properties of found clay. It’s important to set a small pinch pot of said clay in a bisqued pot made of more refractory clay. These tests then reveal what temperature the clay needs to be fired at to reach vitrification.

Thank you for an interesting presentation, Ilena, and the chance to see examples of your studies. I’m sure several members will be on the look out for and experimenting with local clay.

Alan and I are looking forward to welcoming TriCity Potters to our annual Christmas party next week.

Port Moody clay

Gillian McMillan — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:27:16 +0000

I had an interesting email request the other day. Woojae Kim, a Vancouver resident who is currently a grad student at Bard College in NY state, asked me about finding local clay in Port Moody. Somehow he had found a blog which mentioned that I had found clay near our home in old Port Moody.

Two stories here: In the first our house was very nearly engulfed by a mud-slide in December of 1979. After typical torrential rain the saturated fill (rocks and debris dumped in a back yard at the top of the Chines) slid downhill, along a clay-lined stream bed towards the houses on Hope street. Nobody died, but a house was buried. On subsequent walks up that creek we found the slippery clay deposit and I gathered a little, brought it home, and with the enthusiasm of a beginner potter, I threw a little pot with the un-sieved clay.

In the second story, in the late 1990s, when I was a clay artist-in-residence at Port Moody Arts Centre (now PoMoArts) I mentioned to the drop-in enthusiasts that I’d spotted a large seam of the same blue-grey clay in the wall of a deep pit. It was being excavated to form the parking-lot level of Newport Medical building. We arranged for a city worker to take a load of it to the City Works Yard so that it could be used for clay experiments and I took a bucket home. I have no idea if the pile down by City Hall can still be found.. I doubt it.

But after Woojae’s email I dug out some lumps of that old dry clay, added water, stirred it, sieved it and dried it a little so that I could show Woojae how it could be recycled. He was so interested to learn all about local clay and intends to use what he’s learned as part of his thesis dissertation. I mentioned that I had also taken some of the Port Moody clay slip and used it as a slip glaze on a cone 10 reduction-fired test pot. Now he wants to know all about the now-not-available Albany clay slip as his college is not far from that clay source. I gave him most of my bucket of that dry Newport clay, a lump of soft clay made from it, and a couple of ancient Chinese crocks that have been dug from local worker settlements of around 1900. I feel sure they are glazed, like the insides of Medalta sewer pipes, with slip clay glaze.

Port Moody slip glaze

He had brought a bouquet of Spring flowers for me, so I feel that was a good exchange. On his next visit I think he’ll try to find that seam of clay that I mentioned in my first story, and I must take myself up there into the forest to make sure for myself that it can be found. Meanwhile I have another little lump of soft re-cycled Port Moody clay to, once again, make a little pot, and I plan to try out the slip on a cone 10 pot in the next high-fire soda firing. There’s alway stuff to learn or remember in the clay world.