Hal's chat session, we set out gathering and preparing clay,

then plunged straight into making pots. Progress was somewhat
slowed down by one clay sampling from the area which, although
wonderiul to work with once it is mixed and wedged, is Like rock
to break and has to be ground to a powder before it will absorb
water. The preparing of this particular clay produced some highly
inventive grinding methods - all well oiled with sweat and com-
ments. There were two other sources of clay, however, and these
helped,

With work continuing from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. - and sometimes
until dark, each day made progress around the site a bit more
precarious- there were pots all over the place, either set around
to dry or cradled in beds of sawdust - we used the readily avail-
able sawdust instead of the traditional “puki" - a shallow dish-

shaped support pot,

By Thursday pots were piling up - 45 were some heavy locking
rain clouds, so extra clay was hastily dug and with everyone
lending a hand a small kiln was soon completed. In design it
was strictly the next step up the ladder from the original pit.
Built on flat ground, it consisted of a large 3 inch walled cylinder
- about the size of half an oil drum. Some 6 inches above tha
base, two heavy weight lengths of angle iron were placed to form
the kiln shelf. We had no bricks to support them - and they were
too long to fit down inside the kiln so we let them protrude out
through the walls, Two small fire boxes - one either side of the
kiln - were approximately 10" in diameter and about 20“ long.
The finished "piece" was hardly a work of art but it performed
beautifully and fired two full leads the day after it was
constructed.

The building of this primitive type kiln was to experiment with an
alternative means of firing - most pots being fired In a shallow
pit. The first load was flred in an oxidising atmosphere which
proved to be ideal for pieces with various clay slips. The second
firing was completed in the usual way then, when the fires abated,
several bucketsful of sawdust were dumped into the kiln over the
still red hot pots. When the smoke cleared and pots were re-
moved they showed a variation of blocks, qrays and reds. The

Zl,