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Round-Bottom Mug Week 2

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Round-Bottom Mug Week 1

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Bilobal Pot Week 5

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Bilobal Pot Week 4

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Bilobal Pot Week 3

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Bilobal Pot Week 2

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Bilobal Pot Week 1

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Mimbres Polychrome Bowl Week 4

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This book tells of my journey to learn ancient pottery making and what I discovered along the way.

Blog Subjects

Firing (9)
Handbuilding (14)
In-Person Pottery Workshops (2)
Materials (11)
Replicating (17)
The Lost Pueblo of Chichilticalli (6)
Traditional Southwest Pottery (1)

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Books & Merch (4)
In-Person Pottery Workshop (2)
Materials (4)
Online Classes (8)
Pottery (9)
Tools (5)

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Masterclasses

Wild Clay 101
Coil Pottery Making 101
Natural Pottery Paints, Slips & Pigments
Outdoor Pottery Firing 101

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Products

Snowflake Black on White Bowl Replica $150.00
Kwakina Polychrome Replica Bowl $250.00
Ramos Polychrome Replica Pot $250.00

Who doesn’t like a little Tonto Polychrome on a Th

Who doesn’t like a little Tonto Polychrome on a Thursday afternoon? This stuff was made in the 1300s in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Painted with organic paint of unknown origin and fired in brief but hot wood fires. Then the whole Salado world was turned upside down around 1400, everyone moved away and this type of pottery was never made again.

In the 1300s in East Central Arizona glaze paint w

In the 1300s in East Central Arizona glaze paint was all the rage. Much later the Puebloans stopped making glaze painted pottery and the recipe was lost. I am trying to figure it out and it hasn't been easy. My next YouTube video (out on Friday) shows my latest attempts to make glaze painted pottery using all natural materials and methods that would have been available to those fourteenths century potters.

My fall workshop starts in just a few days. In thi

My fall workshop starts in just a few days. In this class we will be exploring every aspect of ancient pottery making, from collecting and wild clay through firing. We will have two colors of clay available and students will be encouraged to make a pot in each color and to paint it with red iron oxide. These will then be fired in two different ways, a smothered reduction firing for the white ware and a surface oxidation firing for the brown ware. This will demonstrate to the students how the same pigment can be used to make different colors depending on the firing process. This photo is from my workshop last spring. If you are interested in learning this, I will be teaching another next spring.

Experimental tumbler painted with different glaze

Experimental tumbler painted with different glaze paint recipes all ready to go. Unfortunately it’s too breezy to fire today so hopefully tomorrow.

A Tucson Polychrome replica pot I made back in ear

A Tucson Polychrome replica pot I made back in early 2020. I fired this at a demonstration firing I did at Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve in Phoenix. I joked that firing a Tucson Polychrome in Phoenix put the universe out of balance and that I needed to now fire a Phoenix Polychrome pot in Tucson to set things right. Of course now I realize that Phoenix Polychrome isn't even real, I guess the universe will just have to stay the way it is.

What does relatively pure clay look like in the wi

What does relatively pure clay look like in the wilds? Here are some photos of different clay deposits for study and inspiration. Just because you have found pure clay does not mean it is good for making pottery, you will need to do some tests to see, not all clay is usable.

The petroglyph man of Table Rock Pueblo, near St.

The petroglyph man of Table Rock Pueblo, near St. Johns, Arizona.

Firing pottery this morning before the moisture ar

Firing pottery this morning before the moisture arrives tomorrow.

Kinishba Polychrome is a late White Mountain Red W

Kinishba Polychrome is a late White Mountain Red Ware type named for the 14th-century pueblo of Kinishba, on what is now White Mountain Apache land in eastern Arizona.

Black and red stepped motifs, hatched fillers, and occasional white outlines sit on a buff to orange background. Related to Fourmile Polychrome and made mainly in the Silver Creek area north of the Mogollon Rim, vessels of this type were made in the late 1300s.

Oxidized and unslipped pottery became popular in the western Pueblo area in this period with Jeddito Yellow Ware being made in the Hopi mesas, and Matsaki buff ware coming from the Zuni pueblos. Kinishba Polychrome is the White Mountain version of that shift. It is also one of the last and scarcest types in the series. Production was just getting underway as people left the Mogollon Rim, and by the early 1400s the pueblos that made it were empty.

This month me and some of my students in the Ancient Potters Club, my weekly Zoom pottery class, will be making Kinishba Polychrome replicas. You can learn more about the APC on my website AncientPottery.how

A painted record of movement, trade, and style between the southern Colorado Plateau and the Fort Apache region, just before the pueblos were left empty.

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