A square fired slab in soft greige, its surface smooth with a scattering of small dark specks and slightly uneven edges.
  • A small heap of pale cream porcelain powder, finely milled with coarser lumps around the base.
  • A close view of the same powder, its fine cream grains spilling out into scattered crumbs.

Wild porcelain is a fine, white-burning clay composed of kaolin, silica, fluxes, and often ball clay, formed through the weathering of aluminum-rich rock. It is usually pure white or “eggshell” in color and differs in both color and firing response from clays with higher iron content.

Composition

Kaolin, silica, fluxes

Handling Notes

  • Often used as a glaze test reference
  • It fires white, but the iron content varies, which can impact the color when fired
  • Color and vitrification differ by dig site, so no two wild porcelains fire identically

Applications in Craft

Keywords

Provenance

Starworks Ceramics, Star, North Carolina. Acquired 2024.

Sources

  • Levy, Matt, Takuro Shibata, and Hitomi Shibata. Wild Clay: Creating Ceramics and Glazes from Natural and Found Resources. London: Herbert Press, 2022.
  • Pottery Glossary: “Glossary of Pottery Terms,” Ceramic Arts Network, n.d., https://ceramicartsnetwork.org/Resources/Glossary

In Use

Have you used this material?

Please contact Mellanee Goodman, Program Director, Curator, and Materials Specialist, to start a conversation about submitting your work for inclusion on this site.

mgoodman@centerforcraft.org