Ceramics Class at the Indianapolis Art Center

February 13, 2013

Ceramics Class at the Indianapolis Art Center

Wednesday afternoon I met Cannon for his first ceramics class at the Indianapolis Art Center.  The class is made up of 12 early elementary students 10 boys and 2 girls. His teacher also teaches third grade. After introductions we started on the first project, a heart shaped dish. We were introduced to the clay and how to prepare it for the slab roller.

We took our turn in line and placed the clay on the slap roller between two pieces of canvas.  Then Cannon had no trouble turning the large tractor sized wheel to roll the clay through the two rollers that gave us a nice smooth slab of clay just the right thickness, just like a perfect clay pie crust.

 Cannon traced around the heart shaped pattern with the wooden tool.  Then he used a fork to press in a “pie-crust” design all the way around the shape.  We draped the clay over a ball of extra clay.  Cannon helped roll a “snake” of clay, scored the coil with the fork and then dipped his finger in the bowl of slip and spread it over the coil. We attached it to the bottom of the draped dish and set it aside to begin drying.



Cannon watches instructor Gina help a student.

By now Cannon realized he was going to have to have messy hands for a while.  I explained that the clay would wash right out of his clothes so he relaxed and we moved over to the wheel area. Students work one on one with an instructor at the wheel. Since I had experience working with a wheel it was okay for us to work together.

 



 

 

It took us a few minutes to get in position. The wheel height is adjustable so after a few attempts we were both in position to begin working.  I threw our blob of clay on the center of the wheel and started the wheel very slowly. Cannon used the sponge to add some water and he extended his arm and placed his hand on the rotating clay.  Since we hadn’t centered the clay it had a very lumpy bumpy feel which Cannon thought was funny. 

Together we centered the clay Cannon’s hands on mine and he adding water with the sponge as needed. When the clay was centered, he put both hands over the spinning clay cylinder, palms down and fingers fully extended and curved around the top. I covered his hands with mine, then we moved his hands down the cylinder to feel its smooth rotation. Cannon’s eyes lit up and a slow big smile spread across his face.

 

 

Then we pushed a thumb down into the middle a short way.  Slowly we pressed down until we had a small cup formed.  The Cannon used his pincher grasp to “pull” the cylinder up, thinning the walls of the cup and making it grow a bit.  We worked together to grow the cup.  We finished just as it was clean up time. We went to the sink and washed off the “mud” and dried our hands.

 

 

The class lined up for a tour of the Kiln room.  We went through the drying room and then into the kiln room. We saw all of the different kinds of kilns from small electric kilns to the large kilns that use gas.  One of the artists explained how he fired his pear shaped clay objects.  He showed us the “cones” that are used to tell the artist what the heat is inside the kiln.  The cones start standing straight up but when they get to just the right temperature they will curve over.  Cannon was given the cone to take home.

Back in the clay studio we put our heart dish on the drying shelf and finished cleaning up. Mr. Dan was waiting for us and we put our coats on and headed for home.