Grounded Knowledge: Wild Clay Walk

Content

Join Arthur F. Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies Renaissance of the Earth Teaching Fellows, Kiran Jandu and Michael Medeiros, for a workshop that invites participants to reconnect with earth-based practices through fieldwork and hands-on making as we move across a diversity of landscapes on campus.

Meeting at an area of the Tan Brook by Parking Lot 12 with one of the most geologically-significant clay deposits in western Massachusetts, we’ll learn methods to identify and ethically harvest wild clay, then take a guided walk across campus to better understand our local ecology, linking cycles of soil, water, forest, and geological change.

Our walk concludes at the Kinney Center’s meadow with a clay workshop, using local terracotta. As we walk through campus and traverse geological time, we’ll explore how traditional clay practices forge connections with the natural world, grounding us in both the deep past and living present.