wild harvested clay lake superior south shore

I am a descendant of both European settlers and Native ancestry in Wisconsin’s Lake Superior region. Most of our indigenous family culture has been lost, in part due to the forced assimilation that affected my great, great grandmother at the Hayward Indian School. I honor and acknowledge the contemporary and ancestral lands of the native communities in this region called home by the Anishinaabeg/Ojibwe/Chippewa and, as recognized by UMD’s land acknowledgement “before them the Dakota and Northern Cheyenne people, and other Native peoples from time immemorial.”

Wild Clay
Exploration 2022

Ceramic materials around the North and South Shore of

Gichigami.

FLUX, Harlow Purchase Award from Bemidji State University

Its Only Clay, 2022

Harvesting

I gather this iron-rich clay at a beloved beach near the mouth of the Iron River in Wisconsin where big clay cliffs drop into the sandy shoreline of Lake Superior.

Near where I live in Duluth, MN the beaches are mostly large stone cliffs and tiny basalt pebbles which I wedge into a stoneware/porcelain clay body.

ceramic artist ashley hise duluth wild clay

Screening and Testing

Processing wild harvested clay from Lake Superior, ceramic artist Ashley Hise

Because of calcium deposits which can explode in the kiln or even after the piece has been fired, the clay needs to be screened. The most efficient way I’ve found is to let it dry out, smash it into smaller chunks, slake those chunks down into a slurry and sieve the slurry through mesh, the best result being sieved through 30 mesh. The basalt pebbles simply needed to be ran once through a bisque fire to burn off organic matter and any bits of calcium before wedging them into clay.

processing lake superior wild harvested clay

I made test tiles and started firing them at cone 1 in a small test kiln. I was able to reach cone 4 (about 2,100 degrees F) before the clay started to blister. However, when I switched to a larger kiln the clay only held it’s integrity to cone 1 (about 2,050 F). I have more to learn about how the size of the kiln/rate of heating and cooling effects this clay. I like firing the clay to as hot as it can handle because the iron starts to flux, developing a lovely sheen and becoming vitreous, no glaze needed.

Final Results

CLAY

Ultimately, my favorite result came from screening the clay through 30 mesh, mixing about 10% black mason stain into the slurry and firing the clay to cone 1 without glaze.

Stones

I love the basalt pebbles wedged or stuck into a commercial stoneware/porcelain clay body and fired to cone 10 - they react interestingly with glazes, often melting and leaving an iridescent brown/black trail.

Finished work

Thrown and altered ceramic sculpture wild clay Lake Superior by Ashley Hise Duluth artist

Thanks again to the Minnesota State Arts Board for supporting this exploration. It has been especially exciting to share with my students, both at Spirit of the Lake Community School and Teen Open Studios at the Duluth Art Institute.

By harvesting materials I hoped to provide for them a beautiful reminder of our relationship to natural spaces and how our surroundings uniquely shape the things we create, plus have some fun romping around by the water!

Ashley Hise is a fiscal year 2022 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Wild Clay Exploration 2022

Harvesting

Screening and Testing

Final Results

Finished work

Wild Clay
Exploration 2022