This may be the longest video I ever made. What do you think of super long videos like this? Want to see another? The second longest was my Mata Ortiz video which was over 45 minutes ua-cam.com/video/rtFTd8UIaDw/v-deo.html
Great video, Andy. Loved your dedication and seeing your progress over the years. Watched it straight through and look forward to more. Thank you for sharing!
Havent seen the full vid but already know its gonna be another banger ! Realy like your content.. have watched the mata ortiz vid 3 times. So much to learn. Thanks andy for al your wisdom.
Very Cool Andy!!! Wild clay fb group suggested you. Thank you. Ive got clay and time. Itchy fingers to make pots and bricks to build cisterns. Thinking..fire in place cistern. The ultimate pit fire?? We shall see. Thanks for your channel.
Excellent idea to string these firings together to observe the progression of eliminating observed problems up to the final firing that gave you the desired outcome. Thx for filming this and sharing it with us.
wow andy!! you make so beautiful things with your hand! and thats an amasing doctors degree experiment!! now just rinse and repeat to see if youll make it more times!!!! i love following your indiana jones like archology!! and to watch your hands doing beautifull things
So exciting and interesting watching your progress through all these firings. #11 attempt has to be the most magnificent pot you have made so far. WoW! Thanks for setting up this sequence. Cheers from Nova Scotia.
Great video! As long as the video has this much information, make it as long as you want! We are somewhere around your 8th firing with our results,... lol! Thanks again, Andy!
Oh sure, also even if I or someone else figures out something that works consistently, it may still be miles off from how the ancients did it. Until we find archaeological evidence it's all just guesswork.
Coals are very important, I think if you see my method for the last two pots you will see how I left a blanket of coals over the pots before smothering.
Hey Andy, I really enjoyed this video and watching your progress and final results. You should be super proud of yourself for persevering. Seemed there were lots of instances where you could have just said good enough but you forged on; Great Job! Also I think videos should be as long as they need to be to tell the story you are telling. I know you know the truth in this.
Thanks. My apprehension is always "will people take the time to watch it?" But it's like that 4 hour video review of the Galactic Starcruiser, it was dang good and so I watched the whole thing, I am still surprised that I watched the whole thing. Look it up if you haven't seen it.
What a great channel :) Thanks for your documentation! So cool to see such beautiful creations made using low tech techniques, and really makes me respect all the work of the people who originally created these ways of creating and decorating pottery. Love it!
Glad this showed up. I found a hillside covered with twenty to thirty types of broken pottery and realized the clay was close so was water snd maybe they broke many over the years. Ty😊
As I was watching it came to me that I was curious if maybe you realized that at the time that they were making this pottery they most likely used the coals that was being used to prepare their foods. As it would have been a double waste of wood material to burn to fire pottery and cook that would have been twice the work and in that environment they most likely didn't want to do that so they used what they had available which was most likely what they used to cook food baked bread those environments to fire their pottery at the same time it's just a thought
Cooking food takes a much smaller fire and much less fuel than firing pottery does. Firing pottery needs temperatures around 750 C, that temperature would turn food into charcoal.
As a Zuni pueblo member,we make a lot of fires and have a lot of ash piles, traditionally we make a lot of stew type meals being because we are farmers of corn beans and squash,meat coming from rabbits, prairie dogs, and deer,elk would be slow cooked in corrugated pots for hours to make the dried corn and beans soft and meats fall off the bone tender and seasoned it with salt from a sacred salt lake. Ash being abundant could have been used to smother the pots instead of just dirt ,ash being already burnt could have acted as insulation from the dirt, and made the oxidation not occur making the paint change color back to red.
@@AncientPottery ashes? You can if you want but I don't see why, they aren't magical ashes just normal one's 😅 you could probably collect the ones from your firings over time ,im shy and private, id have to message you at your email address about hooking you up with the ashes 😅.
@@Ren505nm I understand. It's just that my firing ashes are full of char and I am looking for clean ashes. I wish I knew someone with a wood stove but I live in Tucson so there aren't many wood stoves around here.
Such a well-organized and informative video! It had my head pumping full of ideas. I like the long format, but I can only watch it in stages. Fortunately, you provided some good stopping points that let me come back to it already prepared. I still haven't tried reduced iron firing, but watching your experience, I think I'm that much closer to making my own attempts. Maybe this fall when they lift the fire restrictions in my area.
I haven't figured out how to do this with a charcoal firing. But before I can work on that I need to solve the limestone contamination in my temper. I hope I have finally gotten some clean grog from failed pots that I washed in copious amounts of vinegar.
Reduction with charcoal will be difficult / impossible. The problem is that in order to reduce you need to produce a lot of carbon monoxide, and charcoal burns very slow and probably produces very little carbon monoxide, a slow fire will produce carbon dioxide which will not reduce your pottery. You will see in this video that I tried charcoal and had terrible results.
After I heard you mention that you suspected the organic matter in the smothering dirt could potentially be responsible for the greying and the fire clouds, I wondered if you could try smothering with the white ash from an old fire. I imagine all the carbon would have been burnt out of the ash so it might be inert on a hot pot. As long as there's no black ash mixed in, you could shovel ash into a galvanized trash bin after a firing to save for the next smothering. Of course, this idea may just be too late for the game as those last pots came out amazing, so perhaps you've already got your process figured out.
Awesome video! You're being very efficient with time and fuel...but maybe to a fault. Suggestion: let the secondary fire burn down, then build it back up big again (maybe even repeat several times). This will bury both the pottery and hot coals in a nice ash layer. I think that the ash will help as a barrier when burying, perhaps such that you don't need the extra step of another layer of firing sherds. The remaining hot coals buried down in the ash will make sure it achieves a reduction atmosphere. My 2c. I've messed around with primitive firing of southeastern complicated stamped pottery, but color isn't too important in that case! But I do know from just personal experience of random yard waste burning that a big, long lasting, fuel rich fire, left to burn down naturally overnight, often has unburnt coals remaining, forming charcoal in the center of the ash heap the next day, suggesting a reduction environment can be achieved even without dirt burial if you have enough ash. I guess that leads me to the final idea: maybe ash-rich fill from an old firing could be used as the smothering media? Awesome videos I greatly admire your work.
Thanks for the tips. I have considered smothering with ash, I am just not sure where I can get a quantity of clean ash. Also remember this is the Southwest, firewood can be scarce, so I think the ancient potters may have wanted to be efficient with their use of wood too.
@@AncientPottery :) very kind of you to reply! With a bed of hot coals, ashes can be made a-plenty just by throwing more stuff on... doesn't have to be more wood or good fire fuel since you've already reached temp and are planning to smother it anyways. Here in the southeast, I'd recommend trying heaps of dry leaves for that purpose... But maybe sedges or tumbleweeds or something like that in your biome? Cornstalks leftover from a harvest? Just spitballing
@@AncientPottery What a journey! And then all the filming work too. I really enjoyed this video. Thank you! Like rmoss42 I too thought that ash would be better for covering than soil. The particles of ash are much smaller (and cleaner) than that of soil and less oxygen would get through a layer. Is it possible that the potters of ancient times where firing much longer and had a layer of ash built up on the protecting shards before they covered the pit with soil? Maybe they where reusing the ashes of previous firings?
this may be off topic to video but i was wondering if you could make a video specifically about adding temper to clay. why is it done? what ingredients is possible/best to use for various clay types and finish styles? how best to incorporate those ingredients into clay? where to find/buy ingredients? thanks in advance
Yes, every species of wood burns at a different temperature, for a different length of time, some make better coals than others. Optimally you want as clean burning wood that makes good coals.
Dang I'm not all the way through but I keep seeing Andy pull his pots way too early, feel like he should be waiting for the pot temp to be lower, under 80 deg F, but looking forward to seeing if he figures it out. About 2/3 way through and I'm wondering, could you fire for the white then refire just to get the black coloring in the paint?
The potters I have visited at Santa Clara Pueblo fire their pots around a fenced area blocking the wind. Area shaped like a U like a corral for a horse.
Yes but they are using a very different firing regimen going for very different results. Also they are firing in their yards not on public land. It would be difficult for me to fire in my yard and I don't think the BLM would let me build a wall out there in the desert.
how could you get all the info in less than that.? keep em long and full of information. superb end result, im sort of near the end of my tests..had a few good results last year...proudly sitting on my shelve .not been able to replicate ..damp earth , non clean burning wood holding me back....
i am wondering how the short firing times work regarding durability and watertightness of the pottery, as usually in kilns stuff is fired for so many hours.
I am making earthenware here, it's like a very low temperature bisque firing, so of course it is porous and fragile. But I make replicas of ancient pots so they should, if done right, be just as durable as the originals were.
Maybe find out what was in abundance in the chemical form in SW. meaning any animal that have certain waste that can be used as a substance to create those colorful reduced iron result. Something that was present in there. A plant perhaps or a stone that is crused to be used.
So is the last method you used to smother the method you are going to use from bow on? Jw, watching your channel lit a fire to on old interest of mine. Im barly in the process of refining wild clay....thx u so much for your channel!
@@AncientPottery I am currently binge watching your channel, including liking ever video....I was asking if you know of any UA-camrs who show the art of making black on black pottety
@@amospena2046 OH! Sorry I misunderstood the question. Um no I don't but I do know a good book. Let me see if I can find something and I will link it here.
This was such a weird comment that I dreamed about it last night, not kidding. Why would I want rye? I am pretty sure it would just burn out in the firing.
Also, im sorry for over commenting, but at some point will you do a video or try to replicate the black on black pottery plz.thx your cibola fan/friend🤟
No, I only do ancient pottery techniques. Back on black pottery was developed in the twentieth century and is still practiced by Pueblo potters. So I will not be doing that type.
Have you thought of lining the pit with clay and firing the pit to create a barrier of fired clay to prevent oxygen from migrating in through the soil. Then fire your pots.
This may be the longest video I ever made. What do you think of super long videos like this? Want to see another? The second longest was my Mata Ortiz video which was over 45 minutes ua-cam.com/video/rtFTd8UIaDw/v-deo.html
Great video, Andy. Loved your dedication and seeing your progress over the years. Watched it straight through and look forward to more. Thank you for sharing!
Havent seen the full vid but already know its gonna be another banger ! Realy like your content.. have watched the mata ortiz vid 3 times. So much to learn. Thanks andy for al your wisdom.
@@FVb-zr4rd It was great to see the different processes and how they worked out and loved the long video
if you post em, ill watch em
Very Cool Andy!!! Wild clay fb group suggested you. Thank you. Ive got clay and time. Itchy fingers to make pots and bricks to build cisterns. Thinking..fire in place cistern. The ultimate pit fire?? We shall see. Thanks for your channel.
The sheep jar is always going to be my favourite even if it's got red on :) 🇬🇧
I really like the red spots, they add interest, I think it came out great. I might try another some day. Thanks
Thanks andy , appreciation from Ireland 🇮🇪 👏
Very welcome
Excellent idea to string these firings together to observe the progression of eliminating observed problems up to the final firing that gave you the desired outcome. Thx for filming this and sharing it with us.
You are welcome, thanks for watching.
Thanks for taking us on the journey professor. You rock the tie. The final firing is encouraging.
Thanks Angela!
wow andy!! you make so beautiful things with your hand! and thats an amasing doctors degree experiment!! now just rinse and repeat to see if youll make it more times!!!! i love following your indiana jones like archology!! and to watch your hands doing beautifull things
Thanks a lot, I love doing what I do, I am just glad some people enjoy the videos and I can get paid to do it.
So exciting and interesting watching your progress through all these firings. #11 attempt has to be the most magnificent pot you have made so far. WoW! Thanks for setting up this sequence. Cheers from Nova Scotia.
Thanks so much. Now that I think I have it figured out I want to re-fire that pot some day soon.
Success ❤
Great video! As long as the video has this much information, make it as long as you want! We are somewhere around your 8th firing with our results,... lol! Thanks again, Andy!
You are on the right track, don't give up.
over an hour? i love it! i’m eating good tonight 😂 love the long form videos andy. great work!
Thanks, this might be my longest video ever.
some of us appreciate the unique firing pattern on a beautiful pot
Yeah I do too, @tonysoaresnativeclays1434 is the master of the fire clouds.
Definitely a challenge, I imagine the ancients made it look easy. Thank you, the heat must be dreadful.
Oh sure, also even if I or someone else figures out something that works consistently, it may still be miles off from how the ancients did it. Until we find archaeological evidence it's all just guesswork.
Try having a companion fire and use the coals to bed and blanket the pot generously before smothering
Coals are very important, I think if you see my method for the last two pots you will see how I left a blanket of coals over the pots before smothering.
Hey Andy, I really enjoyed this video and watching your progress and final results. You should be super proud of yourself for persevering. Seemed there were lots of instances where you could have just said good enough but you forged on; Great Job! Also I think videos should be as long as they need to be to tell the story you are telling. I know you know the truth in this.
Thanks. My apprehension is always "will people take the time to watch it?" But it's like that 4 hour video review of the Galactic Starcruiser, it was dang good and so I watched the whole thing, I am still surprised that I watched the whole thing. Look it up if you haven't seen it.
What a tremendous amount of hard work and dedication! But you got there! Congratulations!🤗❤️🐝
Thanks, I am having fun doing the work so it hardly feels like work.
@@AncientPottery That’s the best kind of work🤗❤️🐝
Awesome compilation of your tests through out the years! A long journey that was worth it I think :) It's my favorite style of pottery too!
Thanks Will. Are you coming to the conference in September? My next video has a Lowes tie in, I was thinking of you when I was there yesterday.
Holy shit that is an AMAZING accomplishment. Proud of you for finally achieving this!
Thanks!
Professor Ward is back!👍🏼
Ha ha!
What a great channel :) Thanks for your documentation! So cool to see such beautiful creations made using low tech techniques, and really makes me respect all the work of the people who originally created these ways of creating and decorating pottery. Love it!
You are welcome, I am glad you like it.
Glad this showed up. I found a hillside covered with twenty to thirty types of broken pottery and realized the clay was close so was water snd maybe they broke many over the years. Ty😊
Brilliant your persistence paid off 👍
Thank you for all of your determination. It is inspiring. You are definitely on track to becoming a master of this ancient craft. Wow!
What dedication and perseverance. Well done. .
Thanks!
Thanks a lot!
As I was watching it came to me that I was curious if maybe you realized that at the time that they were making this pottery they most likely used the coals that was being used to prepare their foods. As it would have been a double waste of wood material to burn to fire pottery and cook that would have been twice the work and in that environment they most likely didn't want to do that so they used what they had available which was most likely what they used to cook food baked bread those environments to fire their pottery at the same time it's just a thought
Cooking food takes a much smaller fire and much less fuel than firing pottery does. Firing pottery needs temperatures around 750 C, that temperature would turn food into charcoal.
As a Zuni pueblo member,we make a lot of fires and have a lot of ash piles, traditionally we make a lot of stew type meals being because we are farmers of corn beans and squash,meat coming from rabbits, prairie dogs, and deer,elk would be slow cooked in corrugated pots for hours to make the dried corn and beans soft and meats fall off the bone tender and seasoned it with salt from a sacred salt lake. Ash being abundant could have been used to smother the pots instead of just dirt ,ash being already burnt could have acted as insulation from the dirt, and made the oxidation not occur making the paint change color back to red.
@@Ren505nm Yes I have considered that too. Can I come by and collect a hefty bag of ash from you?
@@AncientPottery ashes? You can if you want but I don't see why, they aren't magical ashes just normal one's 😅 you could probably collect the ones from your firings over time ,im shy and private, id have to message you at your email address about hooking you up with the ashes 😅.
@@Ren505nm I understand. It's just that my firing ashes are full of char and I am looking for clean ashes. I wish I knew someone with a wood stove but I live in Tucson so there aren't many wood stoves around here.
Such a well-organized and informative video! It had my head pumping full of ideas. I like the long format, but I can only watch it in stages. Fortunately, you provided some good stopping points that let me come back to it already prepared. I still haven't tried reduced iron firing, but watching your experience, I think I'm that much closer to making my own attempts. Maybe this fall when they lift the fire restrictions in my area.
only 688 views after 5hrs of posting? your channel is underrated.
Yes, I am growing relatively fast though, I had over 3000 new subscribers last month.
I haven't figured out how to do this with a charcoal firing. But before I can work on that I need to solve the limestone contamination in my temper. I hope I have finally gotten some clean grog from failed pots that I washed in copious amounts of vinegar.
Reduction with charcoal will be difficult / impossible. The problem is that in order to reduce you need to produce a lot of carbon monoxide, and charcoal burns very slow and probably produces very little carbon monoxide, a slow fire will produce carbon dioxide which will not reduce your pottery. You will see in this video that I tried charcoal and had terrible results.
After I heard you mention that you suspected the organic matter in the smothering dirt could potentially be responsible for the greying and the fire clouds, I wondered if you could try smothering with the white ash from an old fire. I imagine all the carbon would have been burnt out of the ash so it might be inert on a hot pot. As long as there's no black ash mixed in, you could shovel ash into a galvanized trash bin after a firing to save for the next smothering. Of course, this idea may just be too late for the game as those last pots came out amazing, so perhaps you've already got your process figured out.
Awesome video! You're being very efficient with time and fuel...but maybe to a fault. Suggestion: let the secondary fire burn down, then build it back up big again (maybe even repeat several times). This will bury both the pottery and hot coals in a nice ash layer. I think that the ash will help as a barrier when burying, perhaps such that you don't need the extra step of another layer of firing sherds. The remaining hot coals buried down in the ash will make sure it achieves a reduction atmosphere.
My 2c. I've messed around with primitive firing of southeastern complicated stamped pottery, but color isn't too important in that case! But I do know from just personal experience of random yard waste burning that a big, long lasting, fuel rich fire, left to burn down naturally overnight, often has unburnt coals remaining, forming charcoal in the center of the ash heap the next day, suggesting a reduction environment can be achieved even without dirt burial if you have enough ash.
I guess that leads me to the final idea: maybe ash-rich fill from an old firing could be used as the smothering media?
Awesome videos I greatly admire your work.
Thanks for the tips. I have considered smothering with ash, I am just not sure where I can get a quantity of clean ash. Also remember this is the Southwest, firewood can be scarce, so I think the ancient potters may have wanted to be efficient with their use of wood too.
@@AncientPottery :) very kind of you to reply! With a bed of hot coals, ashes can be made a-plenty just by throwing more stuff on... doesn't have to be more wood or good fire fuel since you've already reached temp and are planning to smother it anyways. Here in the southeast, I'd recommend trying heaps of dry leaves for that purpose... But maybe sedges or tumbleweeds or something like that in your biome? Cornstalks leftover from a harvest? Just spitballing
@@AncientPottery What a journey! And then all the filming work too. I really enjoyed this video. Thank you!
Like rmoss42 I too thought that ash would be better for covering than soil. The particles of ash are much smaller (and cleaner) than that of soil and less oxygen would get through a layer. Is it possible that the potters of ancient times where firing much longer and had a layer of ash built up on the protecting shards before they covered the pit with soil?
Maybe they where reusing the ashes of previous firings?
this may be off topic to video but i was wondering if you could make a video specifically about adding temper to clay. why is it done? what ingredients is possible/best to use for various clay types and finish styles? how best to incorporate those ingredients into clay? where to find/buy ingredients? thanks in advance
Have you seen this video? ua-cam.com/video/uZZdLLCO8Iw/v-deo.htmlsi=AJNpmmcwZn2omS82 Let me know if this covers the bases or if I need something more.
@@AncientPottery i have now. thank you for the link. i found it very thorough and informative.
Does the variety of wood for the fire make a difference when firing clay?
Yes, every species of wood burns at a different temperature, for a different length of time, some make better coals than others. Optimally you want as clean burning wood that makes good coals.
Dang I'm not all the way through but I keep seeing Andy pull his pots way too early, feel like he should be waiting for the pot temp to be lower, under 80 deg F, but looking forward to seeing if he figures it out. About 2/3 way through and I'm wondering, could you fire for the white then refire just to get the black coloring in the paint?
@@Z0M8I3D under 80 F is crazy. I will show you it can be done much higher than that.
Would wetting the soil or maybe just lightly spraying the top layer of soil help keep air from migrating through the dirt?
That is soo cool!!!!
Thanks
@@AncientPottery do you think your brown reduced would have been more black if you had let it cool completely b4 taking it out of the sand?
The potters I have visited at Santa Clara Pueblo fire their pots around a fenced area blocking the wind. Area shaped like a U like a corral for a horse.
Yes but they are using a very different firing regimen going for very different results. Also they are firing in their yards not on public land. It would be difficult for me to fire in my yard and I don't think the BLM would let me build a wall out there in the desert.
Damn he got suited up for this one hell yeah love the content I even scouted some wild clay but unfortunately I'm not a good scout 😅
Ha ha, keep trying, your dream clay is out there.
how could you get all the info in less than that.? keep em long and full of information. superb end result, im sort of near the end of my tests..had a few good results last year...proudly sitting on my shelve .not been able to replicate ..damp earth , non clean burning wood holding me back....
You will get it, just need the right conditions.
@@AncientPottery Arizona.!
All that digging seems like a fitness program!
LOL, if only I could lose some weight that way.
@@AncientPottery Ah, you’re fine…
i am wondering how the short firing times work regarding durability and watertightness of the pottery, as usually in kilns stuff is fired for so many hours.
I am making earthenware here, it's like a very low temperature bisque firing, so of course it is porous and fragile. But I make replicas of ancient pots so they should, if done right, be just as durable as the originals were.
Maybe find out what was in abundance in the chemical form in SW. meaning any animal that have certain waste that can be used as a substance to create those colorful reduced iron result. Something that was present in there. A plant perhaps or a stone that is crused to be used.
Good morning 🌄 from your Cibola friend
Good morning.
I can watch your videos and listen to you all day long.
You're a good story teller.
Louis L'Amour type if ya know who he us. He sold a couple books.
I've read a lot of Louis L'Amour in my day. Thanks a lot!
So is the last method you used to smother the method you are going to use from bow on? Jw, watching your channel lit a fire to on old interest of mine. Im barly in the process of refining wild clay....thx u so much for your channel!
I think the last method is pretty close, I may make some minor alterations but for the most part I think that will work fine.
@@AncientPottery would you happen to know of any UA-camrs that show the making of this type of pottery?
@@amospena2046 yeah, me. Check out my other videos.
@@AncientPottery I am currently binge watching your channel, including liking ever video....I was asking if you know of any UA-camrs who show the art of making black on black pottety
@@amospena2046 OH! Sorry I misunderstood the question. Um no I don't but I do know a good book. Let me see if I can find something and I will link it here.
rye grain in the paint might achieve the black
This was such a weird comment that I dreamed about it last night, not kidding. Why would I want rye? I am pretty sure it would just burn out in the firing.
@@AncientPottery It is a synchronicity situation. Came to me while I was watching you. they either burned it for high temp or used it in the recipe.
Can I use black commercial clay for paint?
Black commercial clay? I'm not sure there is such a thing, You could use black commercial underglaze for paint though.
@@AncientPottery would that work with other colours like white too?
Also, im sorry for over commenting, but at some point will you do a video or try to replicate the black on black pottery plz.thx your cibola fan/friend🤟
No, I only do ancient pottery techniques. Back on black pottery was developed in the twentieth century and is still practiced by Pueblo potters. So I will not be doing that type.
Nice. 😄👍 Which reminds me, time for a mug of cocoa and two double chocolate chip cookies.
You can never have too much chocolate
@@AncientPottery I actually had 3 cookies, lol.
👍
Have you thought of lining the pit with clay and firing the pit to create a barrier of fired clay to prevent oxygen from migrating in through the soil. Then fire your pots.
I did try that once. It's in here