Making with Place, Glaze testing

Developing a Yorkshire Glaze System

Today's focus shifted from individual glaze recipes to designing a structured programme of material research. Rather than searching for a single successful glaze, I began planning a systematic series of line blends that explore how local materials behave and interact. This feels like an important change in methodology. The aim is no longer simply to make attractive surfaces, but to generate knowledge through carefully documented experimentation.

I started by considering the role of each material within a glaze. Beach sand becomes the primary source of silica, local ash acts as the flux, and local clay provides alumina and contributes its own geological character. Understanding these materials by their function, rather than simply as ingredients, has helped me think more critically about how a glaze is constructed and how local resources might replace commercial ones.

The idea of a Yorkshire-inspired shino also began to take shape. Rather than attempting to recreate a traditional Japanese shino, I want to investigate how the qualities associated with shino. Soft white surfaces, flashing, texture and subtle variation might emerge through Yorkshire materials. By progressively replacing soda feldspar with local clay, beach sand and ash, I hope to understand where the balance lies between retaining the essential character of a shino glaze and developing something entirely rooted in the Yorkshire coast.

This led to the development of a 100-test glaze programme. Organising the research into line blends, ash comparisons, clay comparisons and colourant trials has transformed what initially felt like isolated experiments into a coherent research framework. Each test has a clear purpose and contributes to a broader investigation into regional ceramic materials.

What excites me most is that the glazes themselves become a way of mapping the landscape. A change in ash source, clay source or sand composition is no longer just a technical variation, it represents a different part of the Yorkshire coast. In this sense, every test tile becomes a small geological record, documenting the interaction between place, fire and material.

I am beginning to see glaze research as an extension of fieldwork. Collecting a bucket of clay or a bag of beach sand is only the first stage. The real research happens when those materials are transformed, compared and understood through making. Over time, these tests will build a material vocabulary unique to the Yorkshire coast, helping define the ceramic language at the heart of ‘Making With Place’.

Clay Gathering

Journal Entry clay gathering 6th august

Today I visited three different clay gathering spots along the Yorkshire coast, armed with little more than buckets, a trowel and plenty of curiosity.

My first stop was Cayton Bay. After a short walk down the hill, and an essential coffee along the way, I stepped onto the beach beneath the striking red cliffs. Almost immediately I noticed a small stream trickling down through the cliff face, where the water had exposed a rich pocket of red clay. It felt like the landscape had quietly revealed one of its secrets.

I couldn't resist making a quick pinch pot before filling my bucket, my hands quickly stained the same earthy red as the cliff itself. Alongside the clay, I gathered a bag of washed-up seaweed and a small container of beach sand. Three simple materials, each carrying the geology and ecology of this place.

Standing there, it struck me how differently I now experience the coastline. I no longer see just cliffs, sand and sea. I see potential glaze ingredients, clay bodies and stories held within the landscape. Every stream exposes a new material, every tide leaves behind another possibility. The Yorkshire coast is slowly becoming not just somewhere I visit, but the palette from which I make.

This project is teaching me that making begins long before I step into the studio. It begins here, with muddy hands, full buckets and the quiet excitement of wondering what the kiln might reveal.

My next stop was Speeton Beach. It was my first visit, and I felt that familiar mix of excitement and uncertainty, never quite knowing what the landscape might reveal. The journey itself felt like a small adventure. I wandered through a field of inquisitive but friendly cows before stopping for a sandwich on a bench overlooking the dramatic cliffs and the vast North Sea stretching to the horizon. From there, the path joined the Cleveland Way before descending steeply towards the beach. Questionable wooden steps gave way to a small patch of woodland, then an even steeper scramble down weathered foot holes etched into the cliff by countless walkers before me.

Even before reaching the shore, I had spotted what I hoped was a band of black clay exposed in the cliffs. Trying not to get too excited, I hurried down, and as soon as I stepped onto the beach my trainers sank gently into the dark mud beneath my feet. To my delight, it was exactly what I'd hoped for. Another quick pinch pot marked the moment before I began filling my second bucket of the day. Further along the beach, a small stream had exposed even more of the black clay, while nearby a striking seam of deep red, iron-rich mudstone cut through the cliff face. I collected a few handfuls of this too, along with pieces of the brilliant white chalk scattered across the beach below the towering white cliffs. Before beginning the long climb back to the top, I filled one last container with beach sand. By the time I reached the cliff top again, every bucket felt heavier, not just with clay and stone, but with the possibility of what each material might become once it reached the studio.

My final stop of the day was Hunmanby Gap. After the adventure of Speeton, the journey felt wonderfully gentle, a quiet walk down the road followed by a winding path to the beach. Waiting below were towering cliffs of rich red clay, similar in colour to those at Cayton Bay. As I wandered along the shoreline, I could see the darker Speeton cliffs stretching into the distance, where the black clay disappeared in and out of view with the folds of the coastline.

Standing there, I made a plan. Once I've tested the Speeton black clay, I think the easiest way to gather larger quantities will be to walk along the beach from Hunmanby Gap, carefully timed with the tides, rather than making the steep descent at the Speeton end. It feels like a route I'll return to many times.

Now the real work begins. The buckets of clay, seaweed, sand, chalk and iron-rich earth will be washed, processed and transformed into clay bodies, slips, test tiles and raw glaze ingredients. Today was about gathering. The next stage is about listening to what these materials have to say. Somewhere within them are the colours, textures and surfaces of this coastline, waiting to emerge from the kiln.

Why I collect local clay

Every bag of commercially prepared clay begins somewhere. Before it is refined, blended and packaged, it exists as part of the landscape beneath our feet.

Collecting local clay is not about rejecting commercial materials. They are an invaluable part of contemporary ceramics and offer consistency that makes them ideal for many applications. Instead, gathering local clay is about building a relationship with the place where I live and understanding the journey a material takes before it reaches the wheel.

Living on the Yorkshire coast means being surrounded by millions of years of geological history. The cliffs reveal layers of Jurassic clay, shale and sandstone, each formed under different conditions and carrying its own unique mineral composition. By collecting and processing these clays by hand, I begin to understand not only how they behave as ceramic materials, but also the landscape that created them.

The process is slow. Clay must be collected responsibly, dried, slaked, sieved and refined before it can be thrown or tested. Not every clay is suitable for making pots, and not every test is successful. But these experiments are as valuable as the finished pieces, revealing how each material responds to forming, glazing and firing.

This way of working has become central to my ongoing research, Making With Place, which explores how ceramics can reconnect us with the landscapes they inhabit. Each clay tells a different story. Its colour, texture and behaviour are shaped by the geology from which it came, making every test a conversation between material, maker and place.

For me, collecting local clay changes the way I think about making. A pot is no longer simply an object formed on the wheel, becomes a continuation of the landscape itself.

When we know where our materials come from, we begin to see everyday objects differently. A mug becomes more than something we drink from; it becomes a connection to the landscape it came from and a reminder that every object has a story long before it reaches our hands.

Perhaps that is one of the most meaningful things ceramics can do: reconnect us, however quietly, with the ground beneath our feet.

Beyond Wild Clay

Beyond "Wild Clay"

One of the questions that has become the starting point for my current research isn't about making at all, it's about language.

As potters, we often use the term "wild clay" to describe clay gathered directly from the landscape rather than bought from a supplier. It's a phrase I've used myself for years. But the more I work with locally sourced materials, the more I find myself questioning it.

What exactly makes this clay wild?

The clay hasn't changed. It has been forming beneath our feet for millions of years. It doesn't become wild because I dig it from a cliff rather than buy it in a bag. The material is the same, it is our relationship with it that has changed.

Perhaps it is not the clay that is wild, but our distance from it.

For most of human history, people understood where their materials came from. Clay was gathered locally, processed by hand and transformed into objects used every day. Today, many of us experience clay only after it has been refined, blended, packaged and labelled. We've become disconnected from its geological origins.

The word wild unintentionally reinforces that separation. It suggests that clay gathered directly from the landscape is unusual or exotic, when in reality it was once the ordinary way of making ceramics.

This has become the first thread in a much larger body of research I'm calling Making With Place.

Through gathering local clay, making ash glazes, wood firing and exploring the geology and archaeology of the Yorkshire coast, I'm interested in how ceramics can reconnect us with the places we inhabit. Rather than making work about the landscape, I want to make work with it.

Every pot begins as geology. Every firing records a place. Every material carries a story long before it reaches the wheel.

So perhaps the question isn't What is wild clay?

Perhaps the better question is:

How did we come to think of local clay as wild in the first place?

Wood firing 2025

We load the kiln with care and hope,
each pot a quiet risk.
Clay shaped by hand, still soft with memory,
now placed in the path of fire.

We stoke for days,
feeding wood to flame,
watching heat rise and fall,
never certain, never sure.

The fire doesn’t follow plans.
It touches what it wants to touch.
Ash falls, melts, leaves its mark
a blush, a crack, a shine, a scar.

Some pieces survive unchanged,
some come out better,
some don’t make it.
But all of them carry something real.

Wood firing isn’t about control.
It’s about showing up, letting go,
and trusting the process
to finish what the hands began.

Wood firing is a process rooted in tradition, unpredictability, and deep connection to the material. Unlike gas or electric kilns, a wood-fired kiln is fed by hand over many hours or even days; allowing flame, ash, and heat to move freely through the chamber.

The fire becomes a collaborator, painting the surface of each piece with subtle gradients, flashes of color, and natural glaze formed from melting ash.

When paired with hand thrown ceramics, the result is work that feels truly alive. Each form, shaped slowly on the wheel, holds the memory of the maker’s touch. And in the fire, that touch is transformed, marked by the movement of flame, the path of heat, the quiet alchemy of wood, air, and earth.

No two firings are the same. No two pieces come out alike. This process celebrates imperfection, unpredictability, and the beauty of letting go. Allowing nature to have the final word.

Wood firing 2024

We take the earth, we light a fire and we create beauty.

In a nutshell, unlike an electric or gas firing, wood firing uses wood as the primary fuel for heating the kiln. Wood firing is called an atmospheric firing due to the atmosphere that flows through the kiln and “paints” the ware. In this case the ware is painted by flames and fly ash. Once the kiln reaches high temperatures the fly ash from the firebox that flies around the kiln deposits on the pieces which melts to form natural ash glazes.

A second by product which occurs during the firing is the “reduction” this happens when there is more fuel in the kiln compared to the flow of oxygen. This can essentially choke the kiln, but when controlled this process draws the oxygen from the pots and creates a rich toasty colour palette derived simply from iron.

Wood firing creates a cumulative record of the flame on each piece, by capturing the movement of light through time and permanently marking the movement of flame on the ware.

There is this constant dialogue between wood and fire, wood firing inherently has a raw, elemental connection to natural material and process. I love that for thousands of years humans have been lighting a fire inside an arch of bricks to create beautiful pots.

Wood firing and the connection to community

Another aspect of wood firing that differs immensely from firing in gas or electric is the community connection. It’s the connection with each other and with the ancient skill of wood firing.

Spending a week living in a field with a team of potters, all with the common goal of a successful firing. It’s the graveyard shifts stoking the kiln late at night and the early hours of the morning, whilst the sun sets then again when it rises the next day. Working together to process all the wood; the endless chopping, splitting and stacking of logs. The cooking and eating communal meals, something I don’t think I’ve done on a regular basis since I was a child. The opportunity to talk about clay and pots every hour of the day with like minded potters.

We were in our own wood firing bubble with little concept of what was going on in the outside world. We could of been in a field anywhere and everywhere. For a week my world seemed to have shrunk and I was all consumed by the firing and my life in Whytham woods.

Although this is my first wood firing, I’ve managed to learn heaps already. I can see that every firing will teach you something different each time. It’s the emotional strength and resilience called upon. Followed by constantly asking questions and solving problems, carefully observing every fine detail, finally having the confidence to trust and follow your instincts, whilst always being on the verge of recklessness. Teetering on the edge of disaster and pure brilliance.