Stories from Community Arts
The Community Arts team has been hard at work bringing clay to members of our community of all ages.
Here at Clay Art Center, our Community Arts team partners with local organizations to broaden access to clay and arts education in Port Chester, Westchester County, and beyond. For nearly 20 years, Community Arts has offered clay classes to afterschool programs, residents at assisted living facilities, teachers in professional development classes, newly-arrived refugees, and countless others. In the past month, Community Arts ran two Hispanic Heritage Month one-time classes, a new year of Around the World in Clay Classes began, and students in the high school visited the Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary to dig their own wild clay. Read on to learn more about their experiences!
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Clay Art Center hosted two free, one-time classes for Port Chester families to make projects inspired by ceramic traditions in different Hispanic cultures. In the first class, students sculpted alebrijes, vibrantly colorful and patterned figures that are made up of a combination of different animal parts. These figures were first popularized in Oaxaca, Mexico in the first half of the 20th century, and have since become a significant presence in Mexican folk art and can be found at festivals, exhibitions, and markets across the country. Students in the alebrije class constructed their own figures and used underglaze to decorate their pieces with bright colors.
Students in the second class worked with chanchitos de Pomaire as a source of inspiration. Chanchitos de Pomaire are three-legged pigs made in Pomaire, Chile, a small town outside of Santiago that is rich in clay deposits. The pig figures are known as symbols of good luck and abundance, and are often gifted as a sign of friendship. Some students in the class opted to make a chanchitos de Pomaire-inspired molcajete (a footed variety of mortar and pestle), while others made piggy banks or small sculptures.
The new Around the World In Clay term has begun, and students ages 7 to 18 are getting back into the swing of creating with clay. For the two younger classes (ages 7-8 and 9-10), Around the World In Clay is often their first experience working with ceramics. In the first few classes, instructor and Artist-in-Residence Stephanie Perez focuses on teaching students the basics: rolling slabs, making pinch pots, coiling, and scratching and attaching. As students work through their first projects, they’re encouraged to think about smoothing their pieces and creating a canvas for the glaze they’ll eventually apply. Building a foundation of these essential skills allows students to zero in on their own creativity and where it leads them.
Around the World In Clay clay classes draw inspiration from the deep and varied history of ceramics all over the world. Beyond learning to scratch and attach, students also learn about the history and cultural significance of the ceramics that their projects draw from, and get to see the many different shapes that ceramic work can take. For example, one of the first projects of the new term for the younger students has been the Chinese Ding, or a three-legged vessel from ancient China often used to heat food over a fire, like a cauldron. Ding were made out of both ceramic and bronze, and featured varying levels of ornamentation, from repeated geometric patterns to mythical creatures. Many examples of bronze ding are preserved in museum collections today. After learning about the history of ding, Around the World In Clay students made their own three-footed pots inspired by what they had learned, in combination with their own ideas and interests.
This past week four members of the high school Around the World In Clay class got the unique opportunity to harvest their own clay right next door in Rye, New York. They went to the Edith G. Read Natural Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, where the curator, Scott Williamson, spoke to them about the history of Indigenous people in the area, and how they would use oyster shells as a temper for their ceramics, or a non-plastic additive used in pottery to prevent shrinkage and cracking during drying and firing. The students then learned about searching for raw clay and testing its plasticity by squeezing it and rolling it into coils. The students will then be processing the clay for use in handbuilding and wheel-thrown projects during the rest of their Around the World In Clay term, and they hope to be able to complete a raku firing with some of the pieces made from the wild clay.
