Call for Clay by E. Saffronia Downing

"Call for Clay catalogs the results of E. Saffronia Downing’s crowd-sourced clay project, which explores wild clay as a material embodiment of place and memory. Through public open calls in 2023 and 2025, Downing invited participants to send her samples of foraged clay along with letters describing the places where the clay was gathered. Forty contributors from nineteen states and three countries responded, mailing parcels of clay alongside stories that describe deeply-held relationships with the land. Presented as a scrapbook and archive, Call for Clay demonstrates collective attention toward our shared earth."