Cindy Gu ’29
Sep 25, 2026
A stray lump of wet clay trimmed from a pot or dropped onto a wheel head may seem like trash, but in Pete Gunkelman’s ceramics classroom, it is only the beginning of a new cycle. Instead of tossing scrap clay into the bin, Gunkelman collects it, reworks it, and places it in another student’s hands. His goal is to reduce studio waste and make practical use of material that would otherwise end up being discarded.
The recycling process depends on how dry the clay scraps have become. When students are sculpting or throwing pots, unused pieces naturally accumulate around the workspace. If the pieces are still soft and workable, Gunkelman places them directly onto a plaster wedging table. Because plaster naturally draws out moisture, it absorbs the excess water in the clay, allowing him to hand-wedge the material back into a usable consistency before storing it in plastic bags for immediate reuse.
When scraps dry out past the point of simple re-wedging, the process requires a few more steps. Students collect dry pieces in small buckets, which Gunkelman dumps into a larger barrel where the clay “slakes down” in water into a liquidy slurry. He then pours the mixture into an open plaster trough to draw out the moisture. Once the clay is dry enough to crack at the edges, he feeds it into a pug mill— a machine that mixes clay with different levels of moisture into uniform cylinders ready to be stored and reused.
“Almost every ceramics studio recycles clay, so it’s a very common practice,” Gunkleman said. “I think we’re doing a really good thing by only firing work that we want to keep, and we try to recycle things that we don’t want to keep. And then we can keep using it. It’s a pretty big responsibility.”
To him, the pieces created in the ceramics classroom carry a lasting legacy that will outlive everyone in the room. Because of this, he encourages students to keep and fire only their best work while recycling the rest.
Rather than having each student handle their own scraps separately, the class works together to keep the cycle going. As Gunkelman explained, “I think if each person were an individual artist, we would each be recycling our own clay scraps, and we do it communally. And so we collect it all in one bucket, and then we put it in one big trough.” Depending on students' output, those shared buckets can fill up twice a term.
While recycling clay can extend its lifespan, the process also comes with challenges. Gunkelman said, “Depending on the chemical makeup of the clay, water-soluble minerals can leach out and lead to scumming.” He added, “For example, if you recycle clay made with nephelene syenite, the soluble sodium dissolves in water. As the water evaporates, it leaves sodium on the surface, which can cause glazes to melt at a lower temperature, which will cause all sorts of issues.”
Ultimately, Gunkelman’s approach serves a larger purpose within the studio: minimizing environmental impact while teaching students the cyclical nature of clay. As he puts it, “Until you commit to firing it, it’s infinitely recyclable. So you can just use it over and over again for different projects.”