Writings

After you know what you are looking for, I would like to say again: YOU are the potter, you decide what is workable clay for you. It can be any kind of material, which is plastic and sticky enough for you to work with, no matter the materials inside – except for one thing. It … Continued

Many people ask me, how I can find clay in nature and how do I know it’s clay. What is clay? You can google it, you can find a geological description on Wikipedia, but I will give you a different explanation. Clay are rocks, crushed and weathered to smallest particles – smaller than 2 μm. … Continued

Few tests came out of my kiln this week. Some are good, some I need to work on further, some are pure amazing. From top left to right: Trška gora clay does not melt at 1230°C. That is great news. Trška gora is where our family vineyard is. Idrija clay. I said it would be … Continued

I kindly invite you to two-day workshop for making tea pots, which will be held in Zagreb on October 14 and 15! The workshop will be hosted by dear colleague Lidia Boševski. Info and registration: studio@anjaslapnicar.com // Lepo vabljeni na dvodnevno delavnico izdelavo čajnikov, ki bo 14. in 15. oktobra v Zagrebu! Delavnico bo gostila … Continued

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: … Continued

Usually clay in Slovenia is in layer of different colours. Mostly I can only get to higher layers, because sometimes grey-er clay are at few meters of depth. Sometimes clays are dark grey even at the surface, but usually its red, orange and yellow-ochre. Sometimes between red clay you find small pockets of clean grey … Continued

Among all the clays I have collected from the nature, Straža clay impressed me the most. A bank of freshly dug dirt didn’t looked like much. Truth to be told, what attracted me most was the tiny iron pebbles and larger pebbles of beige and pink colour, which you could break with hand. I could … Continued

This is how a working clay pit looks like on a non-working day:

V tem tednu sem se zaljubila v opeke. Vendar ne kakršnekoli – začarale so me ročno izdelane opeke Cigonce Mehulj. Cigonce je izraz za poljske opekarne na območju Ljubečne, kjer je bilo v najboljših časih uporabe in izdelovanja opek tam kar okoli 50 tovrstnih opekarn. Danes so Cigonce Mehulj edina in zadnja delujoča opekarna v tem … Continued

If you open your eyes, you see clay everywhere. You can find clay all around Slovenia. It is very common material in lowlands where water gathers all the finest particles of the weathered rocks. Ljubljana is a structural basin in central Slovenia. It is a known location for past brick and pottery production. And just … Continued