Meet BC. He's a snail I made using the new Bronze Clay developed by Bill Struve (research chemist). Bill's also the thoughtful husband of LaceyAnn Struve, who first began working in metal clay in 2006. It was LaceyAnn's interest in metal clay that inspired Bill to develop another medium for LaceyAnn to work with. I had the pleasure of meeting LaceyAnn and Bill at the recent Bead&Button Show. I was at a table at the "Meet the Teachers" event, and had a copy of the July 2008 issue of AJ open to Hazel's article about the new Bronze Clay. Next to the magazine, I had displayed my experiments with the new Bronze Clay. LaceyAnn perused these samples and then pointed at the snail. She asked me, "What's his name?" I told her that he didn't have one yet. She quickly replied, "Call him BC!" And there you have it.

BC was my exercise to learn about how this new clay behaved. Addie and I spent days in the workroom playing with the clay. I began by sculpting a snail body with wet clay. Then I impressed clay into a polymer clay mold I had made from my extensive seashell collection. I wanted to see how much detail could be picked up. After letting both components dry completely, I pasted the clay shell to the body using homemade paste (distilled water and some lump Bronze Clay). I set the assembly aside to dry completely.  

Of course, I had to test how easily I could carve into the dry clay, so I made some refinements to the snail body using a craft knife. The clay carved like butter. Then I fired the assembly according to the Bronze Clay firing specifications (the details are in the July 2008 issue of AJ). 

BC shrank during firing (refining the details even more), and picked up a beautiful color. But when we tested the strength of the shell's bond to the body, BC's shell popped off! No worries. This was an opportunity to test whether homemade lavender oil paste would work to bond fired Broze Clay to another piece of fired Bronze Clay. So, I mixed up a batch of oil paste by adding lavender oil to my homemade Bronze paste. I then used the oil paste to reattach BC's shell. I also used the paste as if it were slip to give BC's body some fluid curves. After the assembly was completely dry, Addie and I fired BC again. This time, his shell held fast. 

I can't wait to get my hands on more of the new Bronze Clay, which makes its official debut in about a month at the upcoming PMC Conference at Purdue University. Let me know if you're attending the conference. I'll be there representing the magazine, attending lectures and demos, and hopefully talking with lots of AJ readers! Oh, and I'll bring BC too.  Cheers, Jill