Below are the head and turtle pots I have replicated. It took a few years and about 50 pots,
at 5 hours a pot to get my first "awesome" pot. I tried many clay sources on the farm. Of course,
the whiter the clay the better the results. I tried several methods of cleaning the clay.
My favorite was mixing it with water in a bucket and letting it settle. the temper was equally difficult.
If you use sand which is not prefired, the lime in it will pot lid the pot.
Shell is the temper of Mississippian .
Try grinding it up and putting it directly in the clay. pot lids deluxe!
Pot lids are small pieces which explode out of the pot when the lime draws moisture.
If yo look close you should be able to see the white shell temper in the mississippian pots below.
the pots were coil built and dried. Every percentage of moisture I got out of my pots the better my chance of success.
Then dry I built a fire and place the pots by it. As the fire died down and the pots got hot , I placed them on the coals.
Then I stacked wood over them . As the fire took off the pots glowed underneath.
Fear of just one piece of firewood falling on them was high. If luck was with me on every step of the process,
I then had a nice pot. I was surprised at how the clay having to much organic material in it,
temper being treated wrong, letting your coil build get too dry or wet,
and of course a hundred pounds of burning wood on them ,
would destroy your odds of a good piece. Pots built from processed clay and fired in kilns have
far greater odds of a final product.
