While I am finishing up a round of work I make a mess..a huge mess and I just spent some unpleasant time cleaning up after myself. But it's all part of the process..and there is very little waste.My clay comes in 50lb boxes..(2) 25lb bags in each box. Typically when I throw I open up a couple bags, toss them into the corner, weigh and wedge my clay into buckets and make the work.
After it's made, I have to trim a foot onto the bottom which makes about a huge pile of trimmings, not unlike a pile of clay vegetable peelings..fortunately they don't rot...
I also have my throwing bucket full of slip clay and dirty water. As well as everything in my splash pan and on the wheel table.
so to clean up I break down the boxes the clay came in and stack the broken down boxes inside one that isn't. Those get recycled or used for shipping.
Then I gather up all the trimmings and put them into the bags the clay initially came in.
Take all the dirty water and slip and dump it into the bags of trimmings, then tie it off with some masking tape. Then the bags of slip and trimming reconstitute into very wet clay.
I then take the clay into The Creative Oasis where it gets dumped out to dry into a usable consistency, is then pugged and used for the classes. This makes the clay for classes free and unlimited. I'm not the only potter in the area that handles their reclaim like this, a few others add to the bounty.
Anyway...now I am ready to wedge again..and you can see the bounty of the last round of work.
And the cat..that's Tuna Fish. She's not allowed to come into the studio anymore..so she sits in the doorway and supervises.
