When I filmed this I thought the pottery exploded but looking at it again and thinking about it, I think that one of the stones I used for kiln furniture exploded and caused that damage. Here is a different pot explosion video if you are into that sort of thing ruclips.net/video/pnuYHgY3sLU/видео.html
@@AncientPottery that would make more sense. I’ve seen maybe four videos of yours, but two pots made incorrectly at the same fire? It doesn’t match your skills.
@@AncientPottery also if it takes so much to fill up that trench, could the kilns be out of the way, between settlements? So that there is enough pottery to do the fire?
Goodness knows wet rocks have ruined many dinners over the years, exploding and breaking the dinner pot and sometimes causing violence upon whichever poor people were too close at the time. Maybe next time have a berm ready to push over on the pots and make sure all the rocks preheat along with the pottery, and with the cover sherds. 🧐
Really nice video. You have become a very good story teller so that it is always interesting. It is also nice that you show times when things don't work out as we would like. We learn a lot from those times plus it honestly portrays what people can expect in their primitive pottery journey. We sometimes forget that the ancients had 100's or years to work things out and they certainly had unfortunate outcomes too.
I've been watching your videos for years now and I never made a single mug. But you seem to be such a nice person, so passionate about ancient pottery it shows. Just as said by another fellow here the comments, moments like these and the positive outcome is one of the reasons why we all love your content.
just wanted to stop by and give you a big thank you andy!! im 19 and barely used to do anything, you inspired me to try creating clay and crafting pieces.. it evolved into all sorts of things! im kayking, im painting, im doing pottery, and most importantly open to trying all sorts of hobbies and interests.. thanks again andy!!
Happens to the best of us. We can learn more from failure than from success. When I was new to pottery I fired a Greek Aryballos oil flask and one sherd flew right past my head at a incredible speed and broke into pieces when it hit the wall. After than incident I always made sure to preheat my pots throughly
Great looking pottery, and great video. I always appreciate your extra shots showing off the beauty of the desert too, it sure looks great in monsoon season.
Wow, what a firing! Looked like a beautiful day with the storm clouds out there. But must have been crazy hot and humid till they rolled in. Interesting and unexpected results!😮
Videos like this, showing the entire process and the unfortunate outcome, give me the needed motivation to continue on pottery projects of my own... even after many, many failures.
Good to see the reality! I took your online class and did my first firing last week! Out of 7 pots two were destroyed, three had chunks blown out of the side but the inner bowl was still solid and two pots made it through. The two most important to me made it through fine. Learned so much from it and you are a great teacher. I will do it again!!
Its so interesting that the handle is attached similarly to a wood join. I would be interested in learning more about the differences between that method and the common modern method and the pros and cons of each
@@mglouise97 I think the main cause is because wild clay does not stick clay to clay as well as processed clay. When you smack something on, like a leg or a handle it will very likely fall off during drying. ( even with slip and scour) As for it not being used in modern pottery, it is probably because you can stick a handle on just like that so there is no need to rivet , and a riveted handle is more work than pressing a handle on, and you have to erase the marks on the inside. Those marks tend to show up again when the mug shrinks during drying. at least, that's my experience. I do rivet everything with the wild clay I have because it works great.
@@AncientPottery We traveled to Palisade CO to pick some wonderful peaches for canning. Made it to last class, was just too tired to chat lol. Nice to be back though.
There are places in West Africa where iron smelting operations, which have a lot in common with pottery kiln firing, are treated as religious rituals. A religious framing helps explain failures--we may have angered the god of the fire--but also helps keep the ritual consistent. I don't have much personal interest in the theology of it, but I think there's something to be said for treating the process as a ritual. Know where you're going to sit, how you're going to keep comfortable, and allow the process (which can include distractions like music, if there's time to kill) to be your focus. Of course, the process/ritual itself can be subject to experimentation, tweaking from firing to firing as you find ways to improve either the results or the experience.
Hi Andy, You were one of the first people that I dipped my toe in with pottery and I have to thank you so much for that. Just letting you know a few things my ceramics teacher has taught me that may well be helpful for you: Clay even bone dry has water in it, it's actually molecularly bonded to the clay particles. As you know once bone dry the water that is sitting lose in the clay (the water that makes it feel cool on your cheek) is gone, but the water that is bonded to the clay particles is still held tight. This is what I got when I googled the info: "At about 575 degrees Celsius, clay undergoes the quartz inversion process, where molecular water “cracks off” (different from the evaporation over the first 100 degrees C of the water added to the clay body). Crystals start forming." This is why, as a ceramicist, we very slowly ramp up the kiln from about 300 deg to 600 deg C. We call removing that water, candling. As that bonded water is being 'cracked' off, if you do it too quickly it turns into steam and expands causing blowouts generally where the clay is the thickest. I think were you ran into issues in this firing is, although you heated the pots very well, it just wasn't enough time to ensure the amount of water residue in the thickest part of the pot had lessened to a point where the expanding gas could escape in a small enough volume it didn't blow out. You can actually "candle" pottery in your home oven, it wont turn the clay into ceramic but it will get rid of most of that bonded water from the clay body. I hope that helps. It could have been a rock too with water trapped in it too (River rocks are almost guaranteed to explode due to this)
Hey andy, I'm your subscriber from Iran. I totally believe in your reasons of why dry processing clay is better than other methods. But my question is: can I dry process any clay? If not, which clay is better to dry process?
Never give up, you lost your work, but at the same time, it was for me at least, a great learning experience. If that's any consolation. I've lost a few pot that I worked on really hard, and most probably got cracks and blow outs because I was rushed. (still to wet / not heated enough?) It was hard to stomach, because I almost never have a failure, but there you go. Anyway, take heart Andy, potters must be the most optimistic people on the planet or there never would be another pot after the first prehistoric failures :-). If the cause was a stone, then you probably had the right method of firing and it was just bad luck. I loved the video, you explained everything you were doing (so helpful!) and we got some awesome views of the landscape; thank you for going through the trouble of recording it all. Hope you made it home okay because that sky looks really threatening!
It is good to know that from a scientific stand point, a failure can be as important as a success. I enjoyed your video. Sorry about the sad ending. Better luck next time.
I Might try to make this one have been trying primitive pottery for a while now, made some cups/pots but a good mug is a must. Just need to practice and get a good scraper / buckskin. A credit card did not work very well and the cup looks like a big polygon. Also having a tough time figuring out stone smoothing and when to do it wet and when to do it dry, as last time I attempted it it did smooth the pot but left weird ridges in it after firing. Getting there! As for a Smectite slip, That might be hard to find in the mid west. Might have to take advantage of the "Trade Routes" From "The Amazons" lol.
Are you sure they had juniper up there and mosquite wood down here also at that time? The climate may have been different in the time of the Anasazi. Maybe they do have some pollen analysis in the four corners region which would show how the vegetation was at the time of the firings.
Andy, I wonder if humidity played a part in the failure? Mixing of hot dry air with hot humid air might not make for stable conditions. Most likely lack of air was the culprit though I don't know anything.
I think the explosion was caused by one of the rocks I propped the pots on which were not properly pre-heated at all. So yes the humid and monsoon rains would have played a part in that.
Maybe it is the kind of clay you use these days, because the real problem was the explosion, not the way you didn't get the colours right, that is only secondary. It still makes a cool antique looking mug.
Question: I live in northeast Arkansas and we are covered up in Mississippian era indan mounds and ancient village sites. I worked with the archeology department at ASU in Jonesboro while in undergrade for about 4 years and I learned how to flint knapp and make primitive stone tools but I've never learned to make Mississipian pottery that is muscle shell tempered. Any pointers or sources of information on shell tempered pots? I know of one local lady who has the process down to an art but she will not teach anyone. I do demonstrations for the Boy Scouts on primitive living and stone tools but I don't know much about the ancient Native American Mississppian era pottery.
Ha ha, I really stepped in it this time, I don't eat enough yogurt no know the difference. I will need to buy some yogurt and run some tests I guess. Maybe a good video topic...
@@AncientPottery thanks! As some who eats it every day, the line stuck out. Because American generic yogurt is almost runny. But Greek yogurt, which is what I eat, can be solid. Turn the spoon upside down and watch it not move :)
thinking about it, instead of placing stones, what about cover sherds upside down to lift them off the coals? they would also be pre-warmed, and therefore dryer...?
I bet there's a home somewhere for your cracked pots that failed during firing. There may be people interested in buying it outright as art, or maybe other artists interested in a wabi-sabi style renovation of the broken pieces.
What would happen if powdered charcoal was mixed into clay before shaping it? Would the carbon be integrated, or burn out making it porous, or be a complete fail?
Try searching for this paper, "EXAMINATION OF THE CARBONIZATION PROCESS USING KAOLIN AND SAWDUST" it's about creating Silicon Carbide composites with clay and saw dust fired in a reduction environment. Pretty cool how ancient technologies are advancing modern science.
@@AncientPottery I checked out the page on your website about Temper. It’s very informative and interesting, thank you very much for putting together these resources! I’m considering joining the class sometime :)
@@AncientPottery That's good to hear. I have sherds all over my yard from failed projects. No shortage of temper! Some say it was used as a form of perlite of sorts in the Fertile Terra Preta soils of South America their natives made.
It might be good for making pottery, I have never tried it. This video shows how I test new clays ruclips.net/video/7UcLpTB81BE/видео.htmlsi=jVRq3MrYWoRBWhvZ
Sorry to break it to you, but the stones around a fire pit are just traditional and for propping up cooking pots and such, but they don't do anything for fire safety. I spent 10 years working as a fire fighter for the US Forest Service, I do know something about this subject.
When I filmed this I thought the pottery exploded but looking at it again and thinking about it, I think that one of the stones I used for kiln furniture exploded and caused that damage. Here is a different pot explosion video if you are into that sort of thing ruclips.net/video/pnuYHgY3sLU/видео.html
@@AncientPottery that would make more sense. I’ve seen maybe four videos of yours, but two pots made incorrectly at the same fire? It doesn’t match your skills.
@@AncientPottery also if it takes so much to fill up that trench, could the kilns be out of the way, between settlements? So that there is enough pottery to do the fire?
@@triciac.5078 Yes could be
My stomach sank when I saw you put the rocks in at the very beginning. I was hoping you'd take them out after firing to see if that was what happened.
Goodness knows wet rocks have ruined many dinners over the years, exploding and breaking the dinner pot and sometimes causing violence upon whichever poor people were too close at the time. Maybe next time have a berm ready to push over on the pots and make sure all the rocks preheat along with the pottery, and with the cover sherds. 🧐
This is why I love your videos - they're real! You show your successes and failures and are a joy to watch! Keep on trucking!
I appreciate that, I'm glad you enjoyed it, we can all learn from my failures too.
Andy, I wish 1/10 of what you have forgotten, your knowledge is textbook worthy
Thank you
I have never been to the US and will never be, but I really like the state of Arizona and I admire your work.
Thank you
Really nice video. You have become a very good story teller so that it is always interesting. It is also nice that you show times when things don't work out as we would like. We learn a lot from those times plus it honestly portrays what people can expect in their primitive pottery journey. We sometimes forget that the ancients had 100's or years to work things out and they certainly had unfortunate outcomes too.
Thanks Wes. I am always trying to improve my videos. And as for mistakes, sometimes I think people like to see mess-ups more than success.
I was lucky enough to spend some time at Crow Canyon in high school and made a similar mug. I still treasure it.
Cool, hopefully yours came out better than mine.
I've been watching your videos for years now and I never made a single mug. But you seem to be such a nice person, so passionate about ancient pottery it shows. Just as said by another fellow here the comments, moments like these and the positive outcome is one of the reasons why we all love your content.
just wanted to stop by and give you a big thank you andy!! im 19 and barely used to do anything, you inspired me to try creating clay and crafting pieces.. it evolved into all sorts of things! im kayking, im painting, im doing pottery, and most importantly open to trying all sorts of hobbies and interests.. thanks again andy!!
Some very useful information here. Thank you for doing the hard work of making all these mistakes so we can all skip to the next ones!
Happens to the best of us. We can learn more from failure than from success. When I was new to pottery I fired a Greek Aryballos oil flask and one sherd flew right past my head at a incredible speed and broke into pieces when it hit the wall. After than incident I always made sure to preheat my pots throughly
Great looking pottery, and great video. I always appreciate your extra shots showing off the beauty of the desert too, it sure looks great in monsoon season.
Loved this one. Education can come hard at times.
excellent video as usual !!
Thanks
Excellent video, thank you for sharing not only your triumphs but also the learning moments too! We really appreciate your knowledge and experience.
You are welcome, I am just on a journey of discovery and bringing you along, no matter where that takes me. Thanks for watching.
Wow, what a firing! Looked like a beautiful day with the storm clouds out there. But must have been crazy hot and humid till they rolled in. Interesting and unexpected results!😮
Yeah, well it happens sometimes. I think there is something to learn here though.
Videos like this, showing the entire process and the unfortunate outcome, give me the needed motivation to continue on pottery projects of my own... even after many, many failures.
Nice 'still life' at the end, looking forward to your future successes. 😄👍👏
Thank you! 😃
Good to see the reality! I took your online class and did my first firing last week! Out of 7 pots two were destroyed, three had chunks blown out of the side but the inner bowl was still solid and two pots made it through. The two most important to me made it through fine. Learned so much from it and you are a great teacher. I will do it again!!
This vid contains a lot of important info. Thx for filming this and sharing it with us.
Its so interesting that the handle is attached similarly to a wood join. I would be interested in learning more about the differences between that method and the common modern method and the pros and cons of each
A riveted handle is super strong and was often used by the ancient potters. There's not much more to tell.
Why is that method not used commonly in modern pottery?
@@mglouise97 I think the main cause is because wild clay does not stick clay to clay as well as processed clay. When you smack something on, like a leg or a handle it will very likely fall off during drying. ( even with slip and scour) As for it not being used in modern pottery, it is probably because you can stick a handle on just like that so there is no need to rivet , and a riveted handle is more work than pressing a handle on, and you have to erase the marks on the inside. Those marks tend to show up again when the mug shrinks during drying. at least, that's my experience. I do rivet everything with the wild clay I have because it works great.
That's a great explanation. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing the learning! Mesa Verde is my favorite.
You are welcome, we missed you in class recently.
@@AncientPottery We traveled to Palisade CO
to pick some wonderful peaches for canning. Made it to last class, was just too tired to chat lol. Nice to be back though.
Thank you for also showing the mistakes, I have learned more from that than succes
Glad it was helpful!
I love your channel. I don't make pottery & i don't plan to. Lol.
I just this is very interesting & beautifully artistic.
Engaging and informative thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
There are places in West Africa where iron smelting operations, which have a lot in common with pottery kiln firing, are treated as religious rituals. A religious framing helps explain failures--we may have angered the god of the fire--but also helps keep the ritual consistent.
I don't have much personal interest in the theology of it, but I think there's something to be said for treating the process as a ritual. Know where you're going to sit, how you're going to keep comfortable, and allow the process (which can include distractions like music, if there's time to kill) to be your focus. Of course, the process/ritual itself can be subject to experimentation, tweaking from firing to firing as you find ways to improve either the results or the experience.
Hi Andy,
You were one of the first people that I dipped my toe in with pottery and I have to thank you so much for that. Just letting you know a few things my ceramics teacher has taught me that may well be helpful for you: Clay even bone dry has water in it, it's actually molecularly bonded to the clay particles. As you know once bone dry the water that is sitting lose in the clay (the water that makes it feel cool on your cheek) is gone, but the water that is bonded to the clay particles is still held tight.
This is what I got when I googled the info: "At about 575 degrees Celsius, clay undergoes the quartz inversion process, where molecular water “cracks off” (different from the evaporation over the first 100 degrees C of the water added to the clay body). Crystals start forming." This is why, as a ceramicist, we very slowly ramp up the kiln from about 300 deg to 600 deg C. We call removing that water, candling. As that bonded water is being 'cracked' off, if you do it too quickly it turns into steam and expands causing blowouts generally where the clay is the thickest.
I think were you ran into issues in this firing is, although you heated the pots very well, it just wasn't enough time to ensure the amount of water residue in the thickest part of the pot had lessened to a point where the expanding gas could escape in a small enough volume it didn't blow out.
You can actually "candle" pottery in your home oven, it wont turn the clay into ceramic but it will get rid of most of that bonded water from the clay body. I hope that helps.
It could have been a rock too with water trapped in it too (River rocks are almost guaranteed to explode due to this)
Hey andy, I'm your subscriber from Iran.
I totally believe in your reasons of why dry processing clay is better than other methods.
But my question is: can I dry process any clay?
If not, which clay is better to dry process?
We do love our monsoons here in az, though it does make pottery a hassle.
My favorite time of the year
I love your channel. So unique. God Bless. ❤
Thank you so much!
Never give up, you lost your work, but at the same time, it was for me at least, a great learning experience. If that's any consolation. I've lost a few pot that I worked on really hard, and most probably got cracks and blow outs because I was rushed. (still to wet / not heated enough?) It was hard to stomach, because I almost never have a failure, but there you go. Anyway, take heart Andy, potters must be the most optimistic people on the planet or there never would be another pot after the first prehistoric failures :-). If the cause was a stone, then you probably had the right method of firing and it was just bad luck. I loved the video, you explained everything you were doing (so helpful!) and we got some awesome views of the landscape; thank you for going through the trouble of recording it all. Hope you made it home okay because that sky looks really threatening!
It is good to know that from a scientific stand point, a failure can be as important as a success. I enjoyed your video. Sorry about the sad ending. Better luck next time.
Occasional disasters are just a part of the primitive pottery process. That being said, this is the worst firing I've had on perhaps a decade.
Sorry that they were damaged. I understand the frustration. It was a good attempt. Noted regarding the stones though. Interesting.
That little explosion reminded me of when I was a kid and would put wet lava rock deep in a campfire and wait for it lol
Oh yeah, that would be similar. I do think the explosion was one of the rocks and not the pot.
Love the music on your vids, Andy
Nice one, thanks for sharing Andy
Bravo! No one wants to learn the hard way anymore!
I hate to see those failures after you put so much time into the making and the painting! Hopefully you'll get good results at the kiln conference
I Might try to make this one have been trying primitive pottery for a while now, made some cups/pots but a good mug is a must. Just need to practice and get a good scraper / buckskin. A credit card did not work very well and the cup looks like a big polygon. Also having a tough time figuring out stone smoothing and when to do it wet and when to do it dry, as last time I attempted it it did smooth the pot but left weird ridges in it after firing. Getting there! As for a Smectite slip, That might be hard to find in the mid west. Might have to take advantage of the "Trade Routes" From "The Amazons" lol.
Sounds like you are making progress. You might try joining us in the Ancient Potters Club to make faster progress.
Are you sure they had juniper up there and mosquite wood down here also at that time? The climate may have been different in the time of the Anasazi. Maybe they do have some pollen analysis in the four corners region which would show how the vegetation was at the time of the firings.
Andy,
I wonder if humidity played a part in the failure?
Mixing of hot dry air with hot humid air might not make for stable conditions.
Most likely lack of air was the culprit though I don't know anything.
I think the explosion was caused by one of the rocks I propped the pots on which were not properly pre-heated at all. So yes the humid and monsoon rains would have played a part in that.
Maybe it is the kind of clay you use these days, because the real problem was the explosion, not the way you didn't get the colours right, that is only secondary. It still makes a cool antique looking mug.
Did you get wet, or were you packed up and gone when the storm broke? ;-)
No, I managed to beat the storm out out of there
@@AncientPottery Phew!
Question: I live in northeast Arkansas and we are covered up in Mississippian era indan mounds and ancient village sites. I worked with the archeology department at ASU in Jonesboro while in undergrade for about 4 years and I learned how to flint knapp and make primitive stone tools but I've never learned to make Mississipian pottery that is muscle shell tempered. Any pointers or sources of information on shell tempered pots? I know of one local lady who has the process down to an art but she will not teach anyone. I do demonstrations for the Boy Scouts on primitive living and stone tools but I don't know much about the ancient Native American Mississppian era pottery.
10:27 what type of yogurt? Dannon or Greek? Because that’s a huge variety.
Ha ha, I really stepped in it this time, I don't eat enough yogurt no know the difference. I will need to buy some yogurt and run some tests I guess. Maybe a good video topic...
@@AncientPottery thanks! As some who eats it every day, the line stuck out. Because American generic yogurt is almost runny. But Greek yogurt, which is what I eat, can be solid. Turn the spoon upside down and watch it not move :)
thinking about it, instead of placing stones, what about cover sherds upside down to lift them off the coals? they would also be pre-warmed, and therefore dryer...?
I want to make ceramic pottery , is there any way please....?
Thanks for sharing ur knowledge.
Hi Andy, would love if you could make a video where you grind up a toilet and use it for temper in your clay.
How do you recommend adding feet onto the base of the pottery
Hmm, feet? Something like this? ruclips.net/video/7Au6kSd_F3E/видео.htmlsi=yB-fGMw9hm6RNxgX
@@AncientPottery no 🤣 im talking about if i buy a normal bowl and it has that base that is slightly concaved, i cant describe it well..
I bet there's a home somewhere for your cracked pots that failed during firing. There may be people interested in buying it outright as art, or maybe other artists interested in a wabi-sabi style renovation of the broken pieces.
What would happen if powdered charcoal was mixed into clay before shaping it? Would the carbon be integrated, or burn out making it porous, or be a complete fail?
Try searching for this paper, "EXAMINATION OF THE CARBONIZATION
PROCESS USING KAOLIN AND SAWDUST" it's about creating Silicon Carbide composites with clay and saw dust fired in a reduction environment. Pretty cool how ancient technologies are advancing modern science.
It would burn away resulting in weak, porous pottery.
@@AncientPottery thank you! I may still try firing some with a very minimal amount of carbon powder in it as an experiment, just for coloration
@@AncientPottery I checked out the page on your website about Temper. It’s very informative and interesting, thank you very much for putting together these resources! I’m considering joining the class sometime :)
Do you use your old / broken works as temper or leave them in strange places to have fun with local archeologists? haha
NO! I fire on public land so I am always careful to collect my broken pottery pieces. They do become temper and are added to future pots.
@@AncientPottery That's good to hear. I have sherds all over my yard from failed projects. No shortage of temper! Some say it was used as a form of perlite of sorts in the Fertile Terra Preta soils of South America their natives made.
What is red texas clay good for?
It might be good for making pottery, I have never tried it. This video shows how I test new clays ruclips.net/video/7UcLpTB81BE/видео.htmlsi=jVRq3MrYWoRBWhvZ
👍
Dagnabbit. Unfortunate circumstances.
Stones around a firepit is just basic fire safety. People been putting rocks around firepits as far back as the vikings active days.
Sorry to break it to you, but the stones around a fire pit are just traditional and for propping up cooking pots and such, but they don't do anything for fire safety. I spent 10 years working as a fire fighter for the US Forest Service, I do know something about this subject.
Andy; you produce some of THE BEST OF YOU TUBE. Thank you for your willingness to 'teach honestly' - God bless you - John 3:16
@@rogerdevero8726 for God so loved the world…