Sid's Crawdad slip.

Sid's Special Glazes
Sid’s background in chemistry helps him understand how to mix a wide variety of glazes. Most of the glazes he makes are from ingredients he orders from suppliers. But one of his favorite glazes he makes from clay found near his studio. He calls it Crawdad slip. He found the clay while his sons were hunting crawdads in a stream behind their house.

A slip glaze is made from clay that melts at a much lower temperature than pottery clay. A popular slip glaze from the early 1900s was called Albany slip. The clay used to make it came from Albany, New York. Sid still has a little of the 1000 pounds of Albany slip his grandfather bought over 60 years ago.

Sid had to work to perfect his Tobacco Spit glaze. This glaze has to melt, blister and run a little bit during the final trip to the kiln. If the glaze doesn’t melt in the kiln, it doesn’t look like much. If it melts or runs too much, it just makes a mess.