Jean Silverman on tue 2 jul 96
For Michael, Sue, and Caroline:
Having just spent a day with two potter friends mixing quite a lot of
paperclay (6 10-gallon buckets of slip ready for drying--a whole other
project), I have some suggestions.
Everything we know about paperclay we have learned from Rosette Gault:
two articles in *Ceramics Monthly,* the 1st from the June/July/August
issue of 1992, the 2nd in the latest (J/J/A) issue, 1996; also a manual
she's published called "Paperclay." Her 1992 article lays out all the
basic information; her latest is more about all the things you can do
with the stuff.
Its relevance to mask making is that the material looks, acts, and fires
like clay (though smelly in the bisque-fire), and is MUCH lighter, and so
more functional in performance.
What we did today:
1. Assembled masses of bone-dry clay discards roughly pulverized (hammers
and heavy-duty rolling pins operated by elbow grease), and filled our 6
buckets with clay plus water to cover, and set them aside to slake.
2. Made paper pulp from shredded computer paper (pre-shredding is great)
and various odds and ends of drawing paper and letterhead stock. Gault
says low-grade papers like newsprint, napkins, etc., don't work well and
won't give you nice clean pulp. The drawing paper, etc. we shredded by
hand. Soaked paper in hot water for a bit to soften it, then added small
handfuls of paper to a 1-quart blender about 3/4 full of water. Blended on
high till thoroughly soupy, dumped soup into a clean bucket and repeated
with the rest of the paper. This can be hard on a blender but works quite
fast. The pulp soup then gets strained (ordinary kitchen strainer works
well) to make a thicker, oatmeal-like pulp.
3. With a blunger and HEAVY-DUTY electric drill we turned the slaked clay
into thick slip.
4. Distributed paper pulp among the buckets of slip. Gault says to use
about 30% pulp to clay, measuring by volume by eye (this is not an exact
science here).
5. With blunger mixed pulp and slip thoroughly to the consistency of soft
frosting.
6. Covered buckets, wiped sweat and clay from brows, and collapsed with
iced drinks.
This was all good fun messing around in the mud. The mud was a random
mixture of stoneware and some porcelain scraps. We tried to keep the
clays all within the same firing range. The next stage is to dry the slip
on plaster bats to a workable consistency and go to work! Steps 1. to 6.
took the three of us about 7 hours which included a long lunch break
while the clay slaked.
Hope this is helpful, but read Gault's articles, and experiment.
Jean (in NH where we enjoyed our first really summer-like day in weeks)
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