The main clay body we use is a mixture of coarse red clay from down the road in the little town of Bandana and a more plastic secondary clay from farther down the mountain. Both come from the fields of farmers who have their own relationship with this dirt. Once, our neighbor, who was preparing his farm field and from whom we’d previously gotten clay, spontaneously brought us a tractor-size scoop of a red clay. When we started asking questions to make sure we were getting the same kind of clay as we had dug before, he said in mock indignation, “I’m a farmer—you think I don’t know my own dirt?!” Whereas he is intimately aware of the organic composition and how water drains (or doesn’t!) in this kind of dirt, we have come to know its landscape of particles, color, and working properties. Although our and these farmers’ backgrounds differ, we all have a deep respect for and relationship with this wild dirt, and recognize that in each other.





Striations in a Catawba clay deposit, North Carolina. 







