sample06Perovo · Central Slovenia Region

What happened is that I fell in love with clay and pottery.

It fascinated me. Especially because of the touch. That is why ILA, the touch of cre- ativity, as I named my activity. Here, where I live now, in Perovo, Kamnik, where my mother was born, there is a lot of clay. I did not know that before. But I do remember how excited I was as a child when I always heard the clicking sound under my feet after a heavy rain. Hundreds of years ago, there were the so-called "cegunce” in this area, where bricks were made and pottery was thriving not too far away. The Slove- nian potters from whom I gained knowledge had their own clay pits. While making pottery and for most of the products, I also persisted in using local clay, especially when creating with younger children when I used clay for therapeutic purposes. I felt it di erently. I did not dig it myself, but I do process it manually with all the respect that I do not discard anything. At some point, I realized in a very special way that clay is a soil that we take it out from its breasts so that we can make “gold from the mud”, as the famous architect Jože Plečnik said for the potters.

Tatjana Hlačar

Sample 06 is clay from Perovo (Central Slovenia Region). The recommended firing temperature is 900–1100 °C. The beginning of sintering is at 1100–1250 °C. At 1100 °C shrinkage is 12 % and porosity 6 %.