Personal Practice · Ongoing

Multanni
Mitti

Pakistani clay from the plains of Multan, thrown alongside British stoneware. Two bodies, one kiln. The results are still surprising me.

Material

Multanni Mitti · British Stoneware

Origin

Multan, Pakistan

Firing

Cone 9–10 · Reduction

Started

GiR Programme, 2022 — Ongoing

The problem

Multanni mitti has been used for centuries in skincare, and nobody seemed to have documented what it does in ceramics at high temperature.

What I set out to do

A documented material study: Pakistani clay run as slip decoration against British stoneware, one kiln, everything recorded.

What made it hard

An earthenware clay pushed well past its natural firing point, with no existing literature to work from.

The clay Earthenware by nature — its natural firing point is lower than stoneware
The push Taken to Cone 9 and 10, where the glazes melt and break differently over it
No precedent Nothing documented to start from, so every result had to be produced before it could be read
Method Recipe, layer count, application thickness, cone and atmosphere logged for every test piece

The turn

Use it as a slip, not as a body

Rather than fight the clay's firing point by trying to throw with it, it goes on as slip decoration — a stripe running along the waist of the pot. That reframes the whole study: the question stops being how to make an earthenware behave like a stoneware, and becomes what happens where the two meet. Reds and maroons appear in places the same glaze would never produce them over stoneware alone, and that boundary is the finding.

The Material

Multanni mitti is a fine-grained clay from the Multan region of Pakistan. It's been used for centuries — mainly in skincare, as a face pack and body treatment. I started testing it in ceramics during the residency, initially because I wanted to use it and nobody seemed to have documented what it does at high temperatures.

The short answer is: it's earthenware by nature, which means its natural firing point is lower than stoneware. When you push it to Cone 9 or 10, the glazes melt and break differently over it. So far I've seen reds and maroons appearing in places the same glaze wouldn't produce over white stoneware — particularly with Crystal Emerald, where the copper carbonate is reacting in ways I'm still tracking.

I use it as a slip decoration rather than a throwable clay on its own — a stripe running along the waist of the pot. Small pieces of Pakistan and Britain, linked together permanently in the kiln. As they already are through history.

The Process

Each test piece gets documented — glaze recipe, layer count, thickness of the multanni mitti application, firing cone, atmosphere. That's the only way to understand what's changing between firings. The xp gain over the last couple of years has been real, but there's still a lot of testing left to do.

The practice is ongoing. The pieces made for Cycle Arts Festival, the Kala Topi table setting, and the upcoming Cherry-Vision exhibition all draw from this work.

Small pieces of Pakistan and Britain, linked together permanently in the kiln. As they already are through history. — Instagram, @sh3rry.vzn

Where it landed

An ongoing study rather than a finished project. Documented test pieces across two clay bodies with glaze recipe, layer count, thickness, cone and atmosphere recorded for each; selected pieces first exhibited and sold at Crafted By Design. There is still a lot of testing left to do.

What it unblocked

The documentation is the output. Because every firing is logged against its variables, a result can be repeated rather than remembered — which is what turns a surprising kiln into a technique, and it is what let this work carry into BLEND, Cycle Arts and Cherry-Vision.

Next

Project 261 — THUDPUK
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