But just in case, i'm reposting the entire article (so as not to lose it when HJ decides to archive).
Students in ceramics classes create plates, bowls, art
Posted: Friday, March 23, 2012 2:01 pm | Updated: 2:37 pm, Fri Mar 23, 2012.
It may be the only community art class where students learn to pinch, stretch, spin and throw. In the Cache Valley Center for the Arts ceramics classes, participants employ all of the above techniques to turn unassuming lumps of clay into works of art.
“There’s something that happens, you have a blob of clay, a piece of clay, and really it’s from the earth — you know, it’s clay — and all of a sudden, it can be something,” said CVCA ceramics director Beth Calengor about the process. “I love clay and I love showing people how to work with it.”
Calengor estimates she has been teaching ceramics for CVCA, previously the Alliance for the Varied Arts, for at least 15 years. She holds a master’s degree in ceramics from Utah State University, where she specialized in altered and decorated porcelain bowls. She sold her work at fairs for a while, but she said teaching ceramics is “her dream job.”
“(Being with CVCA) gives me a chance to do pottery, and be not only making my own things, but teaching,” Calengor said. “It’s really a pleasure, honestly. I just love pottery and it’s really great to be able to have a studio to make things in, for all of us.”
Pottery did not always come easy for Calengor, however. She said her first experience with the craft was a ceramics class she took as part of her bachelor’s in fine arts at Michigan University, where she studied painting. She said it was a lot harder than she had anticipated.
“I had this idea that I should be able to do it, you know, right away, and I was not a natural. I was like, I’ll never do pottery again if I can just get out of this class,” Calengor said with a laugh.
Later, Calengor moved to Salt Lake City and began taking ceramics classes at the Art Barn. This time, she fell in love with the art form.
“I figured out how to throw (on a pottery wheel) and I found I really loved it,” Calengor said. “I just kept doing more and more and more and more, and bought a wheel, and bought a kiln, and then went to graduate school for it, then came here (to CVCA).”
“Never say never, because that means that you will end up doing it,” she added with a smile.
While Calengor said some people pick up it right away without difficulty, some of her students expressed a similarly frustrating experience when they first tried making ceramics.
Wells Martineau, an 18-year-old student in Calengor’s teen class, said when he first tried his hand at a pottery wheel, he couldn’t quite get the clay centered and it just turned into a messy lump. Now, he makes meticulously formed plates, bowls, cups and flasks, which he and his family use for medieval reenactments. He said now that he has the basics down, he turns his attention to the details, and there is always something to learn and to improve upon.
Another of Calengor’s students, 66-year-old Marlene Conner, said part of the excitement of producing pottery is never knowing what to expect when her pieces come out of the kiln.
“Quite frankly, you’ll get big surprises — and sometimes they’re happy ones, sometimes they’re not,” Conner said. “But it’s always exciting to see what comes out, and you learn something every time.”
Conner said she loves to make mugs, and lately, teapots.
Community ceramics classes are divided by age into children’s, preteen, teen and adult classes, not by level of experience. That means there are people of all ability levels in each class, Calengor said, from those who have never tried pottery before to those who have done it for years and are looking to further hone their skills. She said that gives each class a good dynamic – where those with more experience can offer their help and advice to those who are just beginning.
Calengor said while the children’s classes are more structured, the teens and adults can choose for themselves what they would like to work on during the class, and Calengor offers individualized help and instruction. Participants pay for the five- or 10-week sessions, and while the children’s classes include a lab fee for materials, the teens and adults buy clay separately for each piece they make. The price of glazing and firing is also included in the price of the clay, Calengor said.
Each piece of artwork is fired twice — once to harden the clay, and once to set the glaze, which is the glassy, colorful finish applied to the outside of the artwork. In addition to teaching some classes, Calengor’s son, Daniel Bialkowski, operates the kiln located outside behind the Bullen Center in downtown Logan. He said the process of heating the kiln to the 2,347 degrees Fahrenheit required to turn the glaze into glass, controlling the oxygen levels in the kiln to get the chemical reactions just right and making sure everything goes smoothly takes about eight to 10 hours on average, and Bialkowski is there the whole time to control the process.
Ceramics students get to have their work fired at the end of each five-week session, and twice during the 10-week sessions. That way, Calengor said, by the time they are halfway through the 10-week course, they have seen the entire process and have a better idea what works, and what they would like to do during the next five weeks.
Way to go Wells. Sound like something you enjoy....
ReplyDeleteCOOL STUFF!!
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