The art of turning ash into cash

The fallout from the eruption of Mount St. Helens 40 years ago helped local potter Michael Wendt literally put a fine finish on his pieces.

As tons and tons of volcanic ash fell from the sky in the days after the cataclysm, Wendt seized the opportunity to incorporate the fine, gray dust into his pottery glazes. The resulting works proved to be so sought-after that they turned a small, young business into an operation with eight employees working in a 10,000-square-foot studio.

“It was a historic event,” Wendt said when asked why so many people wanted a piece of the volcano by purchasing a piece of his work. “It’s still extremely popular. It’s marketed all over the United States. It’s what built this massive studio. For 10 solid years we couldn’t make enough of it.”

Those glory days are gone, but Wendt still has plenty of ash in storage. He never actually collected any himself, but simply placed want ads in the Lewiston Tribune and the Moneysaver offering 5 cents a pound. He would offer them 10 cents per pound if they would accept the value in trade for finished pots, so that became a popular option.

One of the biggest deliveries he got was from Troy Tractor and Implement, where workers shoveled 1,800 pounds of ash from the building’s flat roof the day after the eruption to keep it from collapsing. He paid $90 for the three 55-gallon drums they filled.

His stores of ash got a big boost a couple of years ago when Washington State University was cleaning out one of its warehouses in Albion. Workers discovered 30 garbage cans full of the stuff, so the university asked Wendt if he wanted to buy it.

But he still had thousands of pounds, so he turned them down. Eventually, they said he could have it if he would haul it away. It now sits on a pallet rack in his studio, ready to be mixed into his glazing mixture.

Using ash in glazes is nothing new in the practice of making pottery, Wendt explained.

“Many, many ancient and historic glazes are simply volcanic ash that people gathered up and used,” he said. “They recognized that because it’s essentially molten rock that is already pulverized from the volcano that it’s ready to use as a glaze ingredient. It’s very, very common all over the world. I wasn’t a genius or a great inventor.”

The properties of the volcanic ash make it ideal for glazing. But Wendt is cooking up a plan to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the eruption to try something new and make the actual clay using a to-be-determined amount of ash. Called a “clay body,” the new mixture should fire just as well as traditional clay.

Wendt said that pure clay typically has a melting temperature that is too high for normal kilns. The clay he gets from the rich deposits near Helmer, for example, has a melting point of 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit.

“We can’t reach that,” he said. “We’d melt the kiln first.”

To make the clay usable, “glass formers” with a lower melting temperature like feldspar and silica are added. Those elements liquify and encapsulate the clay granules and form a popcorn ball-like structure at the microscopic level that is commonly known as porcelain.

“I could do the same with volcanic ash because it melts at the same temperature,” Wendt said.

If he can get a volcanic ash clay body to work, Wendt said he will make some pieces to mark the anniversary and market them via local media. Those just might prove as popular as the ash-glazed plates he makes for weddings, anniversaries and other special occasions that are among his best sellers.

“I think it would make a really cool-looking clay body.”

Mills may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2266.

“Many, many ancient and historic glazes are simply volcanic ash that people gathered up and used. They recognized that because it’s essentially molten rock that is already pulverized from the volcano that it’s ready to use as a glaze ingredient. It’s very, very common all over the world. I wasn’t a genius or a great inventor.”

Lewiston potter Michael Wendt

Mount St. Helens erupted 40 years ago. This special section features stories and columns from the time of the eruption and in the years since.

Ask Seth Moran what’s new with Mount St. Helens, and he’ll tell you not much.

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