This posting includes all the work I made with some Manganese Clay. The clay was given to me my Ehren Tool, who works at the UC Berkeley Ceramics studio. When he gave it to me he said, "have fun with the Cancer Clay." The thing about Manganese Clay is that it fires this beautiful dark brown color, and when left naked has bits of metallic sheen built in. But, and this is a big but, it is highly toxic to work with before it fires. It's fine to work with wet, but once it starts to dry, the dust it produces is cancer causing. How fun! Oh, the prices we pay.
Anyway I just thought I'd share these great results I got from playing with the "Cancer clay". What was also fantastic about it was that my usual glazes came out completely different when applied to this clay. Of course I did tests, but it was still an enormous surprise to see the finished pieces. The Manganese clay provides a kind of warmth to the piece that is missing with the white clay. This is especially evident with the Rutile glaze, which almost looks like honey over the manganese clay. And the red under-glaze could also never look quite as vibrant as it does against this clay body either.
(Click the link to see all the work I have for sale on Etsy.)
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| Butter Dish |
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| Gravy Boat |
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| Triplet Bowls |
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| Red Manganese Vase |
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