08/03/2026
Good Old-Fashioned Clay Slop 🌀
Reclaiming porcelain is basically reverse pottery archaeology—every lump holds the memories of old pieces past. But I don’t want to remember it! Let’s make it into something new!
Here’s my low-tech clay recycling process:
First I start by rehydrating my clay mistakes in a big bucket full of water that I hide for most of the year so I forget about it.
Then, once I run out of clay to throw with, I think, oh, it’s def reclaim time.
So I take the bucket out, mix it up, and find my sieve. Labor-intensive? Obviously. But it ensures no iron mysteries (or bone-dry chunks) show up at the worst possible moment in my porcelain clay.
Okay, so I sieve the clay and make it real goopy. But now I need to dry it out before I can throw again.
Enter my plaster wet tray—a big plastic box I used to store shoes in, now living its best life with a layer of plaster as my DIY reclaim tray.
I throw an even layer of slop in there and let it hang out for about a week. That gives the plaster just the right amount of time to suck the right amount of water out so it’s ready to be wedged.
And then voilà! The clay is ready to become something new!
