Feels like art to me.

As the year winds down so do the energy levels and we start to look forward to the summer.  At different times throughout the year, Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, we do the same workshop day after day for weeks and they start to lose a bit of their spontaneity. We always have fun with the kids, but the workshops feel much like doing the same play over and over with the same lines and the same jokes.  Every now and then we have a day to mix that up.  Yesterday we worked with a group of grade eights and then grade seven and finished the day off with a grade five six split.  What a wonderful day, what a hoot. The students were really interested in what they were making and did a great job with excitement and energy.  The high school teacher was a little worried about so much energy, but it was all positive and enthusiastic. It was great! They did some very cool work.  

I helped one boy grade 7  boy out.  He was on the path to a very good vase. He was African and I wondered if his style was something he had seen before or something that was just a part of where he came from or perhaps just a coincidence that he came up with the shape. We used to run a gallery that had sculpture from Zimbabwe and his little vase looked a lot like what we used to carry, just made of clay and not stone.   I had fun helping all the students and there were many that made some nice little coil pots. Just once in a while one kid stands out or I connect more with than the others. We shared a moment and he did some nice work.

When I am working with kids and they make something that they are really happy with, I like to tell them to take a minute and feel what that pride and happiness feels like. When you do something that makes you feel like an artist, you can feel it your stomach.  It feels ….tingly for lack of anything else to call it. It feels like you are an artist.  It feels wonderful.  I like to make as many students aware of that feeling as I can. Many of them feel it and don’t ever notice.  Once they are aware of it, they can make it a point to feel it more often.  Make a point to do things that make them feel good about themselves and what they are doing.

I always thought I wanted to be an artist.  I have done a some work that has made me feel that tingly stomach feeling. If I had really wanted to be an artist I would have done it by now.  We talked to between 7,000 and 8,000 kids last year and about the same or more this year. I like to think that I have a made a lot of people aware of what it feels like to be an artist.  Perhaps that is something that they will take with them forever. Perhaps it could change their path.  So maybe it is one more mediocre artist in the world, or many little sparks lit. I like to think that we are making a difference.

Until next time.

Cindy Clarke

The Clay Teacher