We had many walks during our time at La Patronne. Many little paths passed next to the stone house where we lived for two weeks, and we would take different paths each time, discovering amazing views perfect for water coloring, for taking photos, for exploring or for simply nature watching.

One day, we came across natural clay! Mattie, who is the king of experimentation, took some clay.

Day One. He added water and filtered the red earth of many rocks and pebbles, dried it to what we thought was a good consistency and added some dry grass.

Day Two. We shaped the clay on top of some dried leaves we put on a pottery wheel Mattie fabricated with a log and a nail. Yes, we looked real pro at this point ; ) I formed a little pot, which laid next to the fireplace to dry over night.

Day Three. The next day, we fired the dried pot in the fireplace throughout the entire day and left it in the ash to cool over night (orange skins on top of burning logs were another experiment by Guigui, and fyi, this didn’t smell like oranges).

Day Four. The day after, Mattie and I cracked an empty glass jar and grind it down as fine as we can with a pestle. We mixed it with water and brushed it onto the fired pot. We emptied a candy tin (locally made candy from the area which was super good but I can’t remember the name!), poked some holes under, and caged the pot inside. We placed the tin inside the fireplace for an entire day again. For those who are confused at this point, this is our attempt to glaze the pot.

Day Five. We opened the tin the morning after and there was the “glazed” pot. It almost felt magic to hold a pot which was only red earth on our path five days ago.

Kombucha <3

This whole process was a complete experiment as Mattie and I only have basic pottery knowledge at most, and the process was rather brute. But this is precisely why I’m so proud of this pot which sits next to me as I’m writing this post : )

Now I have a tiny pottery bug in me, and I wish I could find natural clay near my house in Paris. Missing the sunny La Patronne.