materials, materials, materials

Family road trips are a fun way to discover new materials. We always keep an eye out for roadcuts and creek beds when exploring new places. A backpack full of gravel is an exciting, albeit heavy, souvenir that can lead to a new line of pots! 

Our kids help sieve and process the rocks, and I do melt tests in the kiln. Many samples don’t work out, often the particle size is too small or composed of too much limestone. These four locations have yielded my favorite gravels so far, chosen for the color and texture they add to stoneware and porcelain clays. I hope you find them as irresistible as we do!

Our main clay bodies are made here in Austin, and we add collected materials from the locations below to our planters.

All glazes are lead free.

Colorado River

The Colorado River in Texas is 862 miles long! We’ve gathered samples from several locations on the banks of the Colorado in Central Texas. Most samples had far too much limestone for functional pottery, but this was an exception. This gravel is a subtle blend of light colored granite and quartz, that when fired in stoneware clay has a sandy beachy texture.

West Texas

The volcanic history of West Texas is easy to see in these iron-rich rocks. Creek beds in the Alpine and Fort Davis area collect deposits of trachyte, rhyolite, and basalt from the surrounding mountains. When blended into stoneware clay, these volcanic rocks melt, creating mini lava eruptions on the surface of the pot!

Llano Uplift

The Llano Uplift in Central Texas is an ancient geologic dome of Precambrian rock. Geologists have identified 241 different rocks and minerals in the area. The creek beds these rocks were collected from are rich in gneiss, granite, and quartz. Mixed into stoneware clays, these rocks add hues of pink, cream, and grey and a rugged texture to our planters.

Little Missouri River

This gravel is collected from creek beds in the Ouachita Mountains that feed into the Little Missouri River in Arkansas. The Ouachita Mountains are composed of sedimentary rocks including shale, siltstone, and novaculite. This fine gravel adds deep reds, browns, and greys to our stoneware and a soft pebbly texture that’s hard to put down!