Primitive Ceramics at Feans Collective Gardens

I have been living in Galicia for a while now, though I do not have regular access to a ceramic workshop where to fire my work yet. So far I have been producing small figures using local clay, firing them where and when possible. Nonetheless, these limitations are an opportunity to experiment different ways of making and firing, like this workshop at Feans Collective Gardens. It was an introduction to primitive ceramics concentrated in a two-day outdoor workshop. The first day was focused on production and the second one on firing. First day, production: We started the day with a harvesting walk. From 10am to midday we wandered around the lushFeans Collective Gardens guided by Lourdes an expert in wild plants. We gathered edible and non edible wild plants. The aim was to harvest for lunch as well as for the workshop. We prepared some vegetable tempura, salad and also cooked a veggie omelette.

After lunch we cleared up the table and got everything ready for production. We did not use wild local clay but comercial clay. There was not a nearby source of good clay, also there were time and space constricctions. We used a very reliable and maleable redish stoneware from Bunho. From our morning walk we had kept some leaves, to experiment with press-on surface decoration techniques.

I had collected some cardboard with which to build basic press-moulding containers for square and round forms, and brought them to the workshop. During the workshop I demosntrated basic clay handbuilding techniques, pinching, slab building, press moulding, and coiling. The participants were also shown how to use the collected leaves, flowers,twigs, bark and stones to press on, so they will leave marks and paterns. time avthe As the pots were not going to be totally finished in one day, and there was not storing space, the participants had to take their half finished pieces home. We seted up a group to keep in touch so to dry them slowly and do any fininshing deemed necessary. Among the pots were some flat trays and bowls, basic shapes that can be easily transported without damage. The theme "Wild Plants" was hugely enjoyed by the participants. Using the leaves, twigs, etc to inprint markas on the pots was a quick way to treat the surface and keep the materials to a minimum. ...the only constrain was time.

Most people ended up with 2-3 pieces. There was a chat group to keep in touch. In the chat I gave advice on how to finish the pots, drying, rims and bottoms. Some people burnished the pots others did not. Second day, open pit firing: Finally after several weeks a perfect day came for the firing. We have had to cancel twice because of bad weather. But we were lucky, even though it was in November , the day was sunny and very warm. We had dug and prepared the pit in advance. I wanted the firing to be a bit like a ceremony, just for fun, but in a sense to help people to be more conscious about what we were doing. The firing of ceramics is the most decisive moment in the ceramic process. An open pit firing is an espectacle to be shared , it connects us with humanity's past when humans gathered around the fire, for warmth and proteccion and cooking. Days in Novembver are quite short and wet at night. Wood, bushes and dry dung were collected and stored in a nearby greenhouse. People started to come early and we had two firings, one to dry the pit, pre-heat the pots and clay shelves that were going to support them.

The second one was the actual firing There were at least 22 pots ready for the firing. That was more than what I had expected. All in all the two firings lasted around 4 hours.

The cooling down time was short, less than an hour, but this did not cause any posterior damage to the pots. We had quite good results though a couple of pieces exploded damaging another two that were nearby. That was a negligence on my part. One of the participants brought wares that were still quite wet. He was very enthusisatic and cooperative, so we dried them as much as possible during the first fire and included them in the firing. Two of them exploded during the firing, it was quite loud, and damaged other pieces. Another neglignece was to use slighty dump bricks and cearamic roof tiles as kiln furniture the firing. We put sand on the roof tiles to help the pots slide during shrinkage.