Clay Ornaments

A few years ago, when our ceramics program was just getting started, the mayor of our small town decided that the town should have a community tree for all to enjoy. He's always looking for ways to bring people together for the good of the town, to create a stronger sense of community, and to welcome those passing through. He asked that each student in our elementary school make an ornament for this community tree, and we set to work! 

Making something out of clay is pretty special, but to give away the very first thing you make is difficult. So students made TWO! One to keep and one to give. Making two ornaments with every student in the school was a huge task, lots of time, lots of prep, lots of sorting! Nowadays only kindergartners make ornaments to contribute to the tree, the new ornaments are added to the collection of previous ornaments, and everybody wins! Each year students of all ages enjoy searching the community tree for their ornament!

Until this year, each slab was rolled using a rolling pin. They're for pies. Imagine rolling slabs for a class of 18-22 kindergartners. Frazzled. Noodle arms. It felt like it took forever, and they weren't always even. This year we have a beautiful, efficient, shiny new slab roller to make the job of prepping clay a breeze! A dream even! Ok, it still takes time, but not nearly as much as it used to and I LOVE IT!

Before the kiddos arrive to art for ornament makin' I have the slabs ready to go on canvas boards (they keep the clay from sticking to the tabletops and makes projects like this a whole lot more tidy), tabletop containers with a variety of things in them to make textures (marker caps, Popsicle sticks, funky pasta noodles, and anything else that will leave neat-o looking dents in clay), plastic wrap over each slab (prevents the clay from sticking to the cookie cutters), and a box of miscellaneous cookie cutters to choose from. In years past I've had students choose a cookie cutter for their two ornaments, taking turns using popular ones like hearts and boots, but little hands really struggle pushing the cookie cutters through the clay. Making my rounds to help each child with the cookie cutters gets a little crazy, so this year I tried something new! That new slab roller inspired all kinds of new! I had art helpers punch out circular clay cookies from the slabs and skipped that part with the kindergartners. It was much more time efficient and way less frustrating for the kids (and me!).  

As students finished up, I visited their work area to write their names and class sections on the back. Then I used a plastic straw to poke a hole in the top so the ornaments could be strung or hooked. When the plastic straw gets too clogged, I simply cut that section off and keep poking along!

I left the labeled and poked ornaments on a canvas board in the middle of the table, out of the way of free art activities for finishers, and continued labeling and poking ornaments at each table until all were ready to dry!

I can usually finish labeling and poking the ornaments before their class ends. With just a few short minutes before my next class, I quickly removed the ornaments from the canvas boards at each table and place them in borrowed soda bottle trays. 

They stack well in the cabinets they're stored in, allow air all around them so the ornaments dry evenly, they have sturdy handles, and make it easy to sort them into classes when removed from the kiln!

When the ornaments are finally dry enough they're loaded into the kiln. They're fired (temps are incredibly HOT!), cooled (for at least a day), unloaded (carefully), and sorted to glaze. This part is confusing for kiddos. Glaze is like painting, but the colors are mostly pastel and sometimes kinda dull when poured straight from the jar. They get darker, brighter, richer, and change SO MUCH after being fired again! What looks like light purple in the glaze tray actually turns into a gorgeous dark blue! They don't think it makes any sense, but they're always delighted by the surprise colors!

I demo how to glaze before they try it out. There's a lot to know! We talk about putting frosting on cookies. Where does it go? Usually the top! That's where we need our glaze to be. We talked about filling in the nooks n crannies, how to create patterns, how to layer colors. They needed three coats of glaze (otherwise it's not shiny and bright) and could choose any colors they wanted, and they LOVE that part! They're focused, thoughtful, and enjoy telling you about their choices.

The first layer of glaze soaks in pretty quickly, the next takes a bit longer to dry, and the last can take awhile. 

Opening the kiln after they've been glaze fired is SO EXCITING! It's A-MAZING how much the colors change! The kids are always so excited, so proud, and so careful when they see their finished work!

They're truly lovely when finished! Some students need a few minutes to choose which ornament to keep and which to give, others know right away which one is going home with them that day. After they choose, they decorate a piece of sturdy rolled paper to wrap it up in.

I wrap them carefully, tape them, Sharpie their name to the tape and a paper bag, place it in the bag, and staple it shut! They're safer, and the stapled bag helps prevent them from sharing their treasure on the bus, avoiding sad accidental breaks. 

The donated ornaments are delivered to one of the mayors many volunteers. She makes sure they're cleaned, strung, and helps a group of folks decorate the community tree!

This year my family was asked to light the tree at their ceremony. FUN! We were early, so we went for a little walk up the street to visit shops and passed this super cool n happy door handle that I wish I had on a door of my own! 

We lit the tree! We danced to Christmas tunes, sang Christmas carols, and the mayor even read a story!

We are already looking forward to next year!

Play it, Sam...

Growing up the only time I watched cartoons was Saturday morning. Shocked? It was normal. We had 13 channels and when my father got home from work he chose what to watch, usually news. Sometimes, though, we got lucky. Sometimes he'd watch old movies. At first I'd grumble inside, knowing that grumbling outside wouldn't change anything, but I learned to appreciate and love old movies. Little things in life stir up the coolest quotes from old movies. Do yourself a favor and watch some, you won't regret it. 

Without old movie knowledge you'd totally miss my Casablanca reference! If that's you, go watch it. Don't walk to the couch, run! No one can resist the dark coolness of movie icon Humphrey Bogart. I'll bet he'd love this new-to-our-town piano gracing the front of NAPA for the community to enjoy! He might even ask Sam to play it again...

How did Westfield get so lucky? Well, over the summer I took my kids to a movie in Wellsboro. We walked by a man dressed as normal as we were. He looked average. Nothing about him indicated any hidden talents. Minutes after passing him I stopped in my tracks. I heard music. I heard someone playing a piano and it was the average guy! But he wasn't average at all! My children and I listened to him play. It was lovely. Wellsboro has at least 3 pianos spread out along their Main Street and it's an awesome idea! Then I wondered why more towns don't do this. Nice shops and tourism certainly help to make towns nicer, but you can do nice things for the people that already live in towns to make it special. Like a piano. For everyone to play. Anytime they want. Unless it's raining. If it's raining it'll be covered up, but any other time should be fine. I thought yeah, we could do this. YEAH! WE CAN DO THIS! 

How do we do this? Hmm...I contacted the mayor, Dick Vargeson. It's like having your very own Wizard of Oz! I shared my idea and he tracked down a piano! Really, it was just that fast! The Yeager family kindly donated one, and I asked their daughter and my former student, Rebekah, to help paint it. Then I asked her friend, another former student, Lauren Foulkrod, to help too. We were like a piano painting posse!

See?! But before we could dive in, it needed a base coat. Jason at NAPA kindly donated a bucket of NAPA blue paint, and my husband helped me paint it! 

Then the real work could begin. We decided to meet after school a few nights for a week, but it all hinged on weather. A few rainy days and possible showers really threw a wrench in our plans. That's ok! Slowly but surely we plugged along!

The folks at NAPA were awesome, checking on us each evening before they closed at 6 to see if we needed anything. They've taken great care of this piano, and it's so appreciated! 

As we painted folks stopped to ask about what we were doing. I chatted with students about it at school. Cars would beep, folks would shout out encouraging words from cars while stopped at the light in town, kids at school would excitedly tell me they saw me painting and give their stamp of approval on the progress. Even before we were finished it was stirring up community pride and spirit. 

The girls and I had SO MUCH FUN painting together! We laughed, joked, talked about school, shared our mission with folks that asked, and I learned that Lauren had the coolest shoes in the world. How perfect is it that we wear the same size?! She KNOWS I love sugar skulls and that I LOVE teaching Day of the Dead before introducing Frida Kahlo....I also LOVE converse sneakers!!! If we truly were in Oz I'd go Wicked Witch of the West over those shoes!

Others helped as well. Sarah Knight, 2nd grade teacher at WAES, stopped by to say a big hello and to check out the piano up close. She added her own touch by artfully painting "Play Me" on the front, along with a few other special little details. 

I put a clear coat on the piano that evening, and took the bench with me to clear coat over my lunch. I told my students that I was dropping the bench off after school and that it would be the signal that it was open to the public for playing. When I dropped it off I stepped inside to thank the folks at NAPA for their kindness and support. When I walked out there was a student playing it already! It was the BEST!!! Warm fuzzies and good feelings...Since then, several have tickled the ivories. Westfield hosted its very first "First Friday" event. Though small, it was successful and I hope to see it grow. 

Folks sold things they made, others played music and taught guitar, my family enjoyed the chalk drawing on the sidewalk, and others played piano!

More pianos will be added soon, so be watching and listening! If you have pictures playing our piano, share them with our mayor, Dick Vargeson, on facebook! 

Welcome

School is a busy place to be, even in the summer. It's especially busy in the weeks and days leading up to the first day of school for students! You'll find cars in the parking lot outside at all hours of the day, lots of them...custodians and maintenance folks wrapping up summer projects to spruce up the school and grounds (our school looks AMAZING!!!), and teachers. Lots of teachers, some of us wearing yoga pants and Star Wars t-shirts, all busy working on bulletin boards and classrooms, prepping for meet the teacher night. First impressions are important! 

I spent a lot of extra time in my room organizing supplies in cupboards and on shelves, decorating, developing new ideas that can improve what I do and how kids experience art, but I also spent time decorating the lobby. It's extra, but it's significant. It's the first handshake you receive when you walk through the door. You learn a lot about our building when you enter it.

Check out that glitter and those globs of splatter paint....I painted and glittered up the lettering on my living room floor while listening to the Olympics. My husband wasn't impressed by the glitter.....oops!...anyway...On the day I started working on the lobby wall I had my daughter with me at school. It can be boring for teachers kids to hang out at school all day while their parents work on setting up their classrooms but Clare McKee was a trooper! Seriously, that kid could be an Olympic gold medal helper! She was such a fantastic helper in my classroom, refilling crayon boxes and marker bins with new supplies, sorting the scrap paper bin, writing our last name inside the new books I brought to school for the art classroom, organizing the book shelf. IT. WAS. AWESOME. I appreciated her help, we saved a lot of time working hard together, and she was proud of a job well done. Winner winner, chicken dinner! When we'd finished up in my classroom, she tagged along to keep me company in the lobby. Another big project needed some time and attention: turning the wall into a welcome sign for meet the teacher night. 

We got to school early that day and had been there all morning and afternoon working in my classroom. It was HOT in the school.  I-need-water, unladylike hot (ok, maybe that deserves an Oscar for drama, but it was a sweaty day, ok?). I was climbing up and down the ladder with a stapler and large awkward pieces of paper torn from large rolls. It felt like it was taking forever. About half way through the project Clare and I were joined by another young lady, the daughter of a coworker waaaay down the hall. She was checking out what we were up to. The crinkling paper made a lot of noise and she was looking into it! She'd be a great detective. She sat quietly for awhile on one of the green cushions near my ladder and then asked if I was having fun working on the wall. It was a great question, and extremely thoughtful. Was I having fun at the moment? I thought about it for a second. Not really. I'd been working on the wall for a loooooong time (Clare would agree), I was warm and thirsty and I knew I still had a long way to go. Some aspects were fun. It's encouraging to step back to see the big picture, to check your progress and critique what needs a bit of tweaking. The challenge of it is thrilling. I answered her honestly, "sometimes, but no, not at the moment". Can you guess the next question? Yep! "Then why are you doing it?" Another good one! This kid was on a roll! Move over Nancy Drew!

A lot of hours go into the inspiring things you see in our school. Time away from family invested in other families in our community. The fun bulletin boards, the hall displays of student work, the organized and themed classrooms, the special displays in our lobby for events. It all takes TIME. Days and weeks and hours of extra time. So why do it? I told her that meet the teacher night is a big deal. A VERY big deal. For some folks it'll be a welcome back to a school, teachers and friends they already know. That's pretty exciting! But for some it'll be a brand new place filled with brand new faces, and that can be scary. I want people visiting my school to be inspired when they walk in, to feel welcome, to know that exciting and unique things happen there, to feel special because they're a part of that, and know that the teachers there are committed to the doing what's best for kids. Always. That's why we do it. I think the night was a success! I've never had so many smiling faces visit the art room before! So many friendly hellos, glad your backs, hugs, high fives, it was great! It was almost like we were having a party in my room and I'm already looking forward to next time. Be watching for info about Fall Into The Arts this November! It truly IS an art party! Y'all come back now, ya hear?! 

home away from home

We spend 3 weeks each summer in sunny Matlacha Fl visiting my husbands family. But our time there isn't all fun in the sun. 

My mother-in-law is part of a women's charitable organization called the Matlacha Hookers. Before you get too excited, they're based in a small fishing village and everything there has a fish/marine life/island theme. Hookers....get it? Yes, well...These ladies work together to collect school supplies for their local Pine Island Elementary School (P.I.E.), are dedicated to several local fund raisers, and offer support to a variety of other community causes. 

The Pine Island Fishing Tournament & Derby is a big hit for the Hookers every year! The event raises money for P.I.E.'s accelerated reading program and other educational tools. Events in Matlacha often involve event promotions on t-shirts, and for that you need a design that people will wear. That's where the McKee family comes into play. The ladies turned to my mother-in-law, Karen McKee, to ask her son and daughter-in-law (me!) to do the design. Shirts advertising and promoting the event have a list of things that need to be included in the design each year, such as "Olde Fishhouse Marina", the title of the event, and the number of hooks appearing on the shirt need to match the year they're on (pictured is the shirt from last year, the "17th", so there are 17 hooks pictured). We designed the shirt as a team last year, and we designed it together again this year. I do the cartooning, Randy does the font and layout, and it's worked out pretty well. We may not live in Matlacha Florida, but as parents who want great things for their kids, educators who give their best to kids, and folks who love the area, we've adopted the community as our home away from home. And who can tell their mother-in-law no?! 

community presence

The summer I was hired as the elementary art teacher in town was a busy one full of excitement, nerves, and preparation. This was my dream job!!! I didn't want to just do the job well, I wanted to be great at it. This was a big deal, and I took it seriously. I still do. I couldn't wait to get started! My husband, another local art teacher, was an invaluable resource, offering several helpful hints and tips that I gratefully applied. I've become much more efficient at hanging large sheets of rolled paper on the walls without making them a wrinkled mess. My tape donuts have greatly improved. I use a lot less duct tape to secure set pieces. It all gets better every year. Anywho... The new job was a topic of conversation at the family reunion that year. After enjoying a hearty meal, and while the kiddos checked out their "auction" treasures, my great uncle Bob (Dibble) sat with me and insisted that we have a little chat. He held and patted my hand and announced that my job brought along with it some great responsibility that didn't end in the classroom. 

He hoped that the arts would be visible in the community, that I would find ways to improve the community, to inspire it, and get others excited about it too. At the time I thought "of course!", why wouldn't I want to do that? But I think about what he said often. To make communities better it requires many, nay, SEVERAL hands. There are A LOT of folks behind the scenes of everything extra and special thing happening that invest hours of their personal time. They want to feel a sense of community, and possess a strong desire to make where their families are a better place.

If you don't like the way things are, brainstorm ways to fix it. I've had a few ideas, and I'm working on more ideas all the time! It's a personal goal to be present in the community, to be visible and accessible, as often as I am able. 

Remember these? They were empty storefronts and our Main Street looked sad. The owner kindly and generously allowed me to hang student work in the windows to add a little cheer to our town. 

Students from the local school and daycare/preschool centers worked together to make colorful displays for the windows. They had a lot of fun and did a beautiful job! It gave students a stronger sense of community. It promoted their programs. They helped make town better. Folks traveling down our Main Street smiled.

This was a temporary solution, but it was a start. If you have ideas for ways to improve your community, offer them up. The worst thing that can happen is that someone will say no or disagree with you. If that happens, brainstorm some more. Ask what projects are happening now. Start the conversation, get ideas flowing and people involved. The mayor is always looking for helping hands! Seek out the volunteers and the good will doers in the community, roll up your sleeves, and dig in!