Thursday, July 24, 2008

Castles and jugs and puppets............

This week I am creating Myths, Legends and Adventures with 4 and 5 year olds from 8:30 am -1pm, I grab some lunch and head to Playmakers for tech on The Music Man, a cast of 40 kids, and then I get home around 11pm and crash. That has been my schedule all week and I will never do a show and an art camp at the same time again, never, ever, ever! I'm not doing clay everyday at camp like I usually do, because I am having to coordinate firings with the other ceramics camp, and the kilns need a break, so we are doing some painting and collage as well.We talked about knights and castles this week and here are some of the castles the kids made waiting for firing.
This has been one of the best camps I have done at the ArtsCenter, and I am so happy to be back there for summer camp. It is a great place to work, full of joyful people that love what they do. The facility is by no means state of the art, and we could use so many things, but somehow it works anyway, and I have a great time there.
My studio assistants taking a painting break
This is a combination of my class and James' class waiting to fire. Sadly, the slab roller has to make do as a work table during the kid's camps because we have limited space for the mass production kids are so capable of.
James Ward is the official kid's ceramic teacher at the ArtsCenter. He does it with the most grace and patience of any of us. James was recently at Penland and Michael Kline had posted one of his beautiful pots from the wood firing. James has to be one of the kindest people I have ever met. He loaded all of my kid's stuff for me after he taught his kid's class and then an adult class the other night, just so I could have my stuff out of bisque by Friday. This is a one week camp so no time for glazing. We use acrylic paints on the bisque and then I spray the pieces with an acrylic sealer to make it shiny. Below are some face jugs from James' camp. He has been doing these for a couple of years, but I never grow tired of seeing them. The kids make them so fun.

And Last but certainly not least is Mark Warren, who returned with James from Penland to live in Chapel Hill for awhile. Mark is a wood worker, but created some fabulous clay puppets with the kids. He is a great new addition to the studio! Very happy to have him around. Mark was in the work study with James at Penland. I'll try to post camp happenings each week. I'm not sure yet about posting photos of the kids, so until I am clear about that, I will just photograph their work.


3 comments:

Patricia Griffin Ceramics said...

Your kids are so lucky! What a fun class. I'm sure you're inspiring some future potters!

Jen Mecca said...

Looks like your doing a great job with those kids! I have a lot of admiration for people who can do that! jen

Alan from Argyll Pottery said...

It takes me back to the winter when we do evening classes, you must have the patients of a saint but it is obvious that they are having a great time.