Get Your "Art" Geek Shoes on for: Albany Slip Clay

When I first took a ceramics class many years ago, there was a plastic one gallon jug sitting on the shelf with an ancient tattered paper label titled: ALBANY SLIP. Curious, I asked the instructor what it was, and he informed me it was a rare slip clay from a pit that no longer produced it. (In other words: No, You Can't Use It.) Through my time at a different school students would sometimes speak of the magical Albany Slip as if it were made from the dust gently shaken from faerie wings, and many dreamed of a day when they'd actually find some and create the World's Greatest Art Piece, or some such nonsense.

It was actually very commonly used for 250 years, and in the days when clay was king it was used as a glaze for practically every utilitarian piece ever made of clay. It fires to medium to dark chocolate brown at cone 9-10 and creates a nice glassy glaze.

Albany Slip Glaze

Last night curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look on Google Earth to see if I could locate where it was mined. I'd heard houses had been built over the pit so it was unavailable, and I assumed I'd see rows of ticky tacky instead of a clay mine. After reading a little about it on the internets I'd discovered it was mined just a few blocks from the State Capitol in Albany New York, so I fired up Google Earth and within seconds was hovering over the city. After scrutinizing the area immediately surrounding the Capitol, I thought maybe the people were right; the place was lousy with buildings and no sign of disturbance. I slowly looked around the area and then something caught my eye: Across the Hudson River I could see what looked like excavation activity near what appears to be a high school. A closer look confirmed it was indeed a recent excavation, and looking even closer, I could clearly see a large backhoe filling the back of a truck! According to the information available the clay was originally dug from the west side of the river in the area known as Tivoli park, and I see no reason why the deposit couldn't be slightly to the east of the river also. After spending some time looking at Google Earth, it appears there are many small pits dug over the entire area, so who knows?

Albany Slip Pit?

Mining Albany Slip?

As some might imagine, this was somewhat a shock. Does this mean Albany Slip will be available for sale again? I spent more time than I'll admit searching for the answer to that question, and eventually discovered this page from 2007: Ceramic Industry Pottery Production Practices

After reading the entire piece (which was fascinating to a clay geek like me), I came upon this gem at the bottom of the page:

A 10-ton stockpile of original raw Albany slip clay is available and can be purchased in small or large quantities from The Great American Wheel Works, N.Y. The clay comes with an instruction sheet on how to screen the small pebbles that constitute approximately 1% of the total clay content.

(contact information at the link.)

I found a few more references to the Albany Slip Clay on a few other pages, and they inform me the raw clay sells for a whopping $5 a pound. It used to sell for less than that for a 50 lb bag! I'm considering buying a few pounds, though due to the fact I do only primitive, non-glazed pieces these days it'd likely never be used.

So all you people looking for Albany Slip, there you are. And if you clay turds out there do create the greatest work of art ever made using it, remember: You owe me.