Idrija is famous for Idrija lace and mercury mine. Clay is not from the valley, but a hill west of Idrija. Author Anita of blog Rockstarsi is building a house there. She writes about everyday life and one day she posted photos of a hill, where they dug out a hole for their house. I asked: ‘Is that clay?’. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, ‘but I can save you some.’

So I went there, her kids helped me, and I got few bags of it. It was rather stoney, mixed with lime, which didn’t look promising. I stored it in my old studio and last week found it when I finally moved the rest of materials to my new studio. It was perfectly dry, so I soaked it in bucket and the same day put it through a 3 kinds of sieve. One is 200 mesh – I usually use that for glazes. Other two are traditional slovenian sieves for flour, handmade from wood and metal mesh. I like getting different grain size in clay. That is how I get more choice and more depth. There was quite a lot of leftover rocks and again they were beautiful! I cleaned one big one immediately and it turned out to be a mix of marl, calcite, grey limestone and light green tuff. All of them are sedimentary so I figure It will be a low temperature clay or a very nice glaze. There was another rock, which I haven’t figured out yet, perhaps just a sandstone made of all materials listed before. It does have a wonderful sound when you move it together in your hand.

If the clay will melt to soon, I will add some hight temperature materials, usually I like to add it from the same region. So now let’s wait and see!