Crafting My World

Mark Farnsworth, from Nikiski, Alaska, digs his clay from the beaches of the Cook Inlet. Nowhere else in the world is this clay available. His pottery is a marriage of white earthenware clay which produces the marbled effect. The process by which the beach clay is prepared for wedging is a painstaking process involving washing and rinsing several times in order to rinse away the gravel and most of the sand and salt. Once the clay is dried it is ground to a fine powder reconstituted and wedged with a white earthenware clay. Then the throwing begins.