
I was reluctant at first to use red clay. I think I avoided it for the first few months just because it looked so messy. It reminded me of my childhood and all the kids who made mud pies. I wasn't one of them. Some of my friends at HPG worked almost exclusively with red clay, especially Death Valley, and everything the clay touched turned red. Their bats were red, their aprons were red, their clothes were red, even their hands were red. No, I take that back. They weren't red, they were orange. When I began using red, black, and brown clays, I set aside two pairs of shorts that I only used for working with clay. I've never had any problems getting B-Mix and porcelain out of my clothes, but dark clays are another matter. If you have any suggestions on how to get stains from iron and manganese out of your clothes, I'd love to hear them. Right now I use the same two pairs of shorts that are already stained and wear them whenever I'm working with clay. I wear an apron also, but that doesn't completely protect my shorts. By the way, I keep saying "shorts" because I live in Hawaii and rarely wear long pants. This summer when I was visiting family in Cincinnati, I had someone ask me what the weather is like in Hawaii. "Let me put it like this," I said, "I don't own a single long-sleeved shirt!"
Laguna Clay describes Amador as an "orange/brown moist body" which has fine sand and is "slightly coarse." Maya Red is described as a "medium red clay with 60 mesh sand" and is "medium coarse." Death Valley is a "medium-coarse textured, reddish clay" and has the same iron speckling as Rod's Bod. Russian River is described by Aardvark as "warm orange-brown, very smooth." None of these descriptions is all that helpful. I would suggest trying all of them (and any others you might have access to) in order to determine their qualities for yourself. In my own experience, trying different clays has been extremely important in my creative growth. Each clay begs to be made into different forms and works differently with different glazes and decorative techniques.
