Those Ubiquitous Plastic Bags

People have been making pots for millennia, but sometimes I wonder how they did it before the advent of the plastic bag. I go on about simplicity, sustainability, and environmentally-sound compost so I fear this blog will disillusion one and all when I admit my reliance on those big flimsy plastic bags that I collect, recycle, and cherish after my rare trips to the dry cleaners. Stuck, that’s where I would be without them-- quite literally. My clay would be stuck to whatever I was using to shape it. Let me explain this incongruous dependence on the ever-present plastic bag.

As a handbuilder, I use all manner of objects to shape my pots. I make them over bowls and in them, over pumpkins and soccer balls and whatever other form inspires me. Lengths of PVC pipe, leaves, and plastic animals are a few favorites. What prevents my clay from sticking in undignified and frustrating ways to my chosen shape—be it metal, glass, wood, vegetable, or some other material—is that thin layer of plastic.

This is an issue peculiar to handbuilders. Potters’ using wheels depend on water to keep the clay slippery, smooth, and malleable. In contrast, I paddle shapes, apply contrasting clays, maybe add leaves or stamped images. I want my pieces to support themselves so I can safely remove any formative molds sooner rather than later because, as the clay dries, it will shrink and crack.

People sometimes describe my stoneware as sculptural, but in reality it blends those properties with traditional pottery techniques. Although I hardly ever use commercial molds, nearly everything in the world around me is subject to being used to help shape my pieces. Between the clay and some supportive and guiding object, and sometimes even between the clay and my hands, that very thin layer of plastic works its smoothing, separating, and simple magic. I wonder what I would have done in times prior to this ubiquitous resource. Use a layer of grease, perhaps, or some thin textile? Cornstarch, maybe, or a large leaf? The bottom line is that, while I scoff at that “better living through chemistry” mantra so pervasive in my youth and preach recycling with zeal, I am thanking the stars for my dusty, battered, oft-used plastic bags.

Compost!

Compost? Is this the handbuilt stoneware blog? Yes and yes. Compost!

Santa (in her infinite wisdom) brought my husband Bill a tee shirt that says “Compost—can you dig it?” And indeed he does. How is this pertinent to Kahoka pottery? Those pumpkin pots, that’s how. Slabs of clay are smoothed down over pumpkins to share their wonderful organic shape. To a handbuilder, those ridges and curves are more interesting than the perfect round accomplished on a wheel. Than anything can be added (upside down as previously described) to that pumpkin pot—leaves, figures, letters, or nothing at all.

Once a year I carefully select a pumpkin at the farmers’ market to use as my new model. I seek out an unprecedented size or shape and favor the pumpkins with deep ridges that remind me of Cinderella’s coach. At some point in the season, I use my clay to make a mold of that pumpkin since I know my organic globe is

time limited. After valiant service (often of nearly a year), the pumpkin succumbs to old age and lands in the compost. Our compost is in a square made of railroad ties, one on each side and a couple ties high; that’s plenty of space for digging in the new offerings (which are all veggie in nature) so they don’t attract critters.

Spring comes and the compost erupts into a motley patch of fledgling avocado trees, lots of squash of all kinds, some tomato plants, and more of those glorious pumpkins. Bill fusses that vines are crawling out of the compost square and he can’t mow out there. I tell him not to bother them and to gently curl them back in closer to the bin if they are encroaching on his turf. Those vines are on a mission, and it’s all good!