This week, besides being the second week of schools being closed in Washington and the first week of Washington's "stay-at-home" order, is also spring break at YVC. Though I know I've got a lot of work to do for next quarter, since my clay classes were canceled and I'll be teaching something else online, I chose to spend this time as a break. I spent some of this break time in my amazing, incredible, clean, bright and slightly chilly new clay studio.
Mount St. Helens blowing off steam in 1982
A couple of years ago, I worked straight through spring break, what with presenting at NCECA in Pittsburgh during finals week and doing a multi-day ESCALA training when I got back. That quarter was awful. It really threw into relief how important a break is for my ability to function in the studio or classroom (or online classroom, as the case may be).
A stray cat knocked down this ceramic dish while he was climbing the shelves
So far this year, since my studio remodel was completed and the furniture and tools were moved back in, I haven't had a chance to make any actual work in the space. In fact, I might consider my making in the studio a net loss, since I've been tossing stuff that I realize I'm never going to fix, finish, or sell. And last week an unexpected visit from a skittish, stray feline reduced the work in the studio by one more piece.
The tray cat in question, stalking the new shelves.
Before the rollercoaster of COVID-19 related surprises began, I had been planning to spend some time in the studio making work for an upcoming show. A group of local artists are planning a show focused on the anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. Though I grew up in Wisconsin and I wasn't alive at the time of the eruption, I've always felt a fascination with the event because of its timing. The 40th anniversary this May coincides with my 40th birthday just 11 days later.
Photos of Mount St. Helens before, during, and after the 1980 eruption
I found out about the show because some local ceramic artist friends were working on developing some ash glazes (or pumice glazes) using ash from the eruption. The plan was to develop and test recipes that could then be used by various artists. The artists were using the glaze studio at YVC for some of their work, but I'm not sure if they ever finished. The last time they planned to come in was after the March 12 school closure order.
two views of the volcano in progress
With the various closures and stay-at-home requests and orders, it isn't clear to me whether the show will actually be able to happen. I think the venue had changed in mid-March, but things are happening so quickly and everything is so uncertain just now, that I am choosing to only worry about what I can control.
three boxes mostly done building
One thing I can control is using this spring break time as an actual break. Often I spend some of my spring break time prepping my online classes, and I have done a bit of that work, but I've tried to limit that time. I spend a bunch of time during the weekend before finals adjusting my live final critiques to online critiques and thinking about how I could teach Functional Pottery online. During finals week (last week) I fired and unloaded kilns, graded, communicated with students, took pictures for students who couldn't collect their finished work, and worked on union issues related to the pandemic and our preparations. I also advocated for pushing back the start of the spring quarter so that my colleagues and I wouldn't have to spend the entire break developing online content.
the smoke plume in progress
I am pretty lucky, in that I have taught online before. I was scheduled to teach 3 classes, one of which is and was entirely online. I've taught this class online before and I spent time in August updating all the due dates and modules for my entire online series of 3 classes. Of course with the quarter being pushed back, some of this work will need to be revised. I also anticipate updating some of my requirements in light of the fact that students may not be able to use on-campus computers, may be "working at home" with children who aren't in school anymore, and generally to account for the fact that everyone will be extra anxious and stressed out this spring.
three volcanos in progress
Unfortunately, my clay classes can't be moved online. In my last post, I was thinking hard about how I could do this and I was feeling excited about the possibilities for teaching clay online and having the space accessible for students, but the insurmountable hurdle was the clay and the clean up and recycling processes in the studio. Even if I could keep the students 6 feet apart from one another and myself at all times (which would be challenging, even with the best of intentions), I just couldn't get my head around how to keep myself, my students, and my studio employees from handling wet clay, slurry, and wet towels or sponges that had been handled by other students. Not to mention all the other tools and equipment that would need to be shared in the space.
two volcanos and a smoke plume in progress
The stay-at-home order of this week, which might be extended, appears to preempt my ability to teach live anyway and seems like the best health advice coming from medical professionals is that we shouldn't try to do things in person. So my clay classes were canceled and will be replaced with either an online art history or online art appreciation class. One of these I have prepared, the other one I have not, but the delayed start of the quarter makes me fairly confident that I can get either class ready to go during next week when I am being paid for my work time.
the eruption box in progress
This week I've slept in most days and stayed up late watching movies or shows with my family. I've done a track workout with my daughter most days (the coach sent a list of workouts home with her before school was closed) and she's done a couple of boot camp workouts with me as well. Her consistent whining is just the motivation I need to stick with a tough workout! I've listened to far too many podcasts about Coronavirus and read far too many articles about teaching during a pandemic, but I've also read some real books and listed to several audiobooks while working in the studio. My daughter is doing a FaceTime book group with her grandparents, and she and I have had some time to sew "squares" for our Harry Pottery quilt. She's also baked chocolate chip cookies with minimal assistance twice during the two weeks she's been home from school.
this kitty is only friendly in the morning, so I only got a visit because I was building before everyone else was up
We've kept ourselves busy, but my earlier wake-up time has allowed me to take advantage of some quiet time in the studio to build. I only have a week, but I didn't have much trouble getting started. My idea for the Mount St. Helens show was to create boxes that capture the shape of the smoke and debris from the eruption and the change in the shape of the volcano before and after the eruption.
the steam and rolling debris of the eruption
The 1980 eruption (did you know there was another small eruption in 2008?) was mostly sideways, which impacted both the path of the destruction and the resulting shape of the volcano afterwards. I like the idea of representing the clouds of dust and smoke in solid (er, hollow) clay. Obviously the result lacks some of the wispiness of the original, but I kind of enjoy the idea of capturing some of the shape and direction of the eruption in a medium that is so stable.
the eruption and volcano box from the side, before cutting the lid
I've created four boxes, one showing the volcano before eruption, one during, and two after. All four boxes open, but the interior space is pretty different in all four boxes. The before box has the simplest shape both inside and out and I've left the surface fairly smooth, in part because the before picture I was using showed the volcano covered with snow.
the pre-eruption box, open
The after box is quite small inside and actually has a hollow section underneath because of how low that section was. The blast opened up both the side the and top of the volcano and I rendered this as a very low front, which make the interior of this low area almost inaccessible anyway. This box is barely a box, since the crater of the volcano is the focus and the lid is actually very shallow.
The post eruption box interior and underside
I roughed up the texture inside and outside the crater to give a sense of the rough, craggy stone and the varied angles around the crater and down the sides. This one is the roughest of the four. I didn't initially intend the four different boxes to represent different seasons, but I realize that my pictures represented different seasons. This, and my interest in creating some variation in texture between the four, influenced the final results.
the post eruption box and lid
The next smallest box actually comes from a picture taken two years after the 1980 eruption. The steam blast is a more interesting shape in some ways than that the eruption itself, so I wanted to include it. I think it captures what we think a volcano looks like, more than an actual eruption. This is the volcano I'd draw in a game of Pictionary. The plan is to attach the smoke plume to a metal rod which will insert into the lid. The lid has a bottom that will hold the rod up and the rod will help keep the plume in place. I could have attached the plume permanently, but the risk of breakage would be greater.
the 1982 box and smoke plume, which will be attached and reinforced after firing
The shape I had the most fun building was based on a picture from the actual 1980 eruption. The blast came out one side and in the picture the dark cloud seems to roll along the bottom of the front edge. I've stylized this in the sculpture, but I kind of like the way I've done it. It seems to capture the movement and the mass of this thing.
the 1980 eruption box, done building
There's no real reason these need to be boxes, except that I had a week to devote to building them and I figured the show will feature lots of fairly small work. The eruption box is a ridiculous shape for a box, but I enjoy the wiggly wobbly interior space of this one almost as much as the exterior shape and texture. Now to find out whether I'll get to use any of that pumice/Mt. St. Helens ash glaze.
the interior of the eruption box
There's one more wacky decision I made and I haven't yet decided if I like it. When I was researching the eruption with my daughter, I learned that a man named Harry Truman (not the president) died (or presumably died) at Mount St. Helens because he didn't evacuate in advance of the eruption, but his 16 cats also died because they didn't evacuate.
Truman's 16 cats
So I attached 16 cats along the bottom of the pre-eruption volcano box. This is the piece that I imagine would be complemented by a drippy and/or variegated ash glaze.
Truman's 16 cats along the bottom of the pre-eruption box
My daughter is also working on a piece for this show. She started her plan for an active erupting Lego volcano, which will, of course, erupt on just one side. She got a decent start early this week, but its difficult to say whether she'll be able to maintain her patience enough to actually complete the project. It is challenging and it isn't going perfectly because she's making up the design herself, but her response to adversity is to flail in frustration and erupt (see what I did there) in tears. I can't offer much help with the Legos themselves and I'm not entirely sure how to help her help herself calm down. My reaction is to tell her to do something else. I am interested to see if she will be able to cope next week while I am actually working from home most of the day.
the Lego volcano in progress (notice the conveyor belt with a single flame in place).
Friday afternoon I attended an emergency meeting at my school in response to the COVID-19 directives from Governor Inslee. In a press conference earlier in the day, he had asked all K-12 school to close from Tuesday of next week (March 17) through April 24. He also told state colleges that they would be required to move classes online or observe social distancing.
The tools that make me think I cannot teach this class online.
Essentially, the state would prefer all faculty and all classes to move online. There are some fundamental concerns about this plan and most of them have to do with equity and access. A significant number of our students at YVC do not have reliable computers or internet at home. With the K-12 schools also closed, working at home will be more difficult for all of our students who live with children, including students who had originally intended to take online classes.
Bisqueware from my hand-building class this quarter, before glazing. Clockwise from middle: Sean Wilkinson's extruded ears, coil pottery by Zanity Conteras (back), Ibet Vargas, Amy Wade, and an anonymous student.
Only about 15% of classes at YVC are normally taught entirely online, meaning the majority of our students were not planning to take their spring classes online. Besides equipment and internet access, students may not feel that learning online is best for them, and they might be right. Taking an online class requires time and tools, but it also requires students to hold themselves to a regular schedule without the expectation of a class meeting to support them. As anyone who has wasted a lazy weekend knows, this can be tough.
Pottery and sculpture from various students waiting for next week's critiques.
Trying to do all the work for a 5-credit online class on a Sunday night leads to burn-out and frustration. I always advise my students to spread out their time and work on the class daily so that it doesn't feel overwhelming. I often ask my students to give tips to their classmates and I remember a couple of years ago a student saying "Don't wait until you feel motivated, because you arer never going to feel like doing the homework."
Work fresh from the raku firing last week, both shorter pieces by Eryana Weaver.
Social Distancing in Classes that Can't Be Taught Online
I'm scheduled to teach three classes next quarter. One is entirely online, so moving online doesn't really impact the organization of that class. But the clay classes are a different story. I am schedule to teach functional pottery next quarter. The outcomes and objectives of this course focus on making and glazing pottery. In particular, this objective, "Create functional and visually appealing forms using the potter’s wheel" tells me that this class cannot be taught entirely online (I think it is safe to assume that most students don't have a potter's wheel at home).
A student throwing on a potters wheel (in the old studio).
My administration understands that not all classes can be taught online and the state has indicated that we're allowed to teach classes in person if they can't be moved online. But if we do teach them face to face, we need to follow social distancing guidelines that dictate that people can't be within 6 feet of each other for more than 10 minutes.
That yard stick gives a sense of how far 6' is. The 16 student wheels are currently in groups of 8, each roughly a yard from its 5 neighbors.
My clay studio at school is very large, with wheels on one end of the room and work tables on the other. There are 16 student wheels, but they are currently set up roughly a yard distance from the wheel on either side, across and both kitty-corner wheels. Logistically, there are two main options for separating the students from one another. I can move the wheels away from one another, which would also entail moving the work and wedging tables. The other option is one that has been discussed for lab classes, the class could be divided into different meeting times, so that there were fewer students in the room at the same time time. Wheels and wedging tables would still need to be moved if the class had 8 students, but there would be less moving required.
A view of the studio before the metal shelves were put in place (the wheels are in different positions today).
I went in to the studio yesterday to measure distances. There is room to place fit 16 student in the space each with a buffer of 6', but there would be a lot of moving to do. This would create a very different atmosphere in the clay studio, but at least everyone would be in the same class meeting time. However, I realize now that my measurements didn't account for me. Where would I be? How could I teach 16 students effectively from this distance?
In the foreground, the distance between facing wheels, in the background, the six wedding tables much too close together.
Both a meeting of 16 and a meeting of 8 would necessitate some thinking about processes in the studio. Once folks move from their wheels, our 6' distance is lost. And students would need to get tools, set up their wheels, get clay, wedge clay, put finished work away, and clean up daily. Later there's kiln loading, glazing, and firing. The main room is larger than the glazing room. where we could probably only fit 5 students in at a time (and apparently they would have to synchronize all their movements from wax, to brushes, to spray booth to glaze buckets).
the glazing room. the center counter is less than a yard, so folks would have to stagger themselves on different sides of the table or spread out long the 18' feet of glaze buckets (with 6 different glazes within each of those 6' distances).
Students would certainly need to glaze in shifts. Wedging tables, too, would need to be moved. We have six wedging tables where 12 students can reasonable wedge at once, but maintaining the social distance would require us to move all six tables apart and only 6 people could prepare their clay at once. Presumably they'd each be pulling clay from our 4-7 different buckets, but how long does the virus live in clay? What about throwing slurry (clay mixed with water) and washing up? Do we need to set up different protocols for throwing and cleaning? Our work study students and hourly employees usually run laundry and recycle clay, does this put them at risk of handling contaminated towels, clay, and slurry?
A demonstration of what teaching with a 6' gap would look like.
But the thing that I've been really thinking hard about is the distance I am expected to maintain from students. I wanted to think about this distance Friday night, so I laid out a yard stick and a couple of rulers to measure a six foot distance from my own wheel at home. That's a loooong ways to stand away from someone who is throwing. It is difficult to see what someone is actually doing with their hands, or even how thick their thrown walls are. These are things that I point out daily in class and it is the most efficient way for students to see what is happening.
Pottery from last week's raku firing. Beautiful copper glazes, but I can't remember whose pots these are.
Normally I walk between the two rows of wheels and I often kneel down in front of students' wheels to give individual instruction and correction. This puts me within two feet of the students. Sometimes I even touch their hands to adjust their hand position when they can't understand what I am describing or showing. Transferring precise hand positions and pressure from what you see to what you do is not as easy as it looks.
The dark text is a simplification of my course outcomes and objectives. The red circles are the things that require students to make things out of clay or glaze these same things
Teaching Pottery Classes Online
So, the big question is, how could I possibly teach a class with students on the wheels when I can't get close enough to see their hands and interiors and they can't get close enough to me to see the same? To help me think this through, I want to return to my course objectives and outcomes. These can be divided into three categories: making, glazing, and firing. As I read through these course objectives, though, I see that besides the obvious need to actually use these techniques, there is also a focus on demonstrating understand of techniques, processes, and materials.
One of my many video demons for the Functional Pottery classes.
I already have a lot of elements of this class online. This class is flipped, meaning that students can watch all or nearly all of my demos online. I've already put my lectures and tests online.. The only thing they really can't do online is the making itself. They can't make pottery, glaze pottery, mix clay, and load and unload kilns online.
students throwing (in the old building) within 6' of one another
But I've been thinking about this all weekend. maybe students can virtually load kilns. Maybe they can virtually identify placement of foot rings and handles and analyze form from pictures. Maybe they can even practice and get feedback on the placement of their hands (virtual hands) and tools during throwing and trimming. Last week people were laughing at me when they talked about loading kilns virtually, but now I'm thinking it has possibilities. Also, why doesn't a virtual game of loading a kiln already exist?
With one relay damaged, we were down two one electric kiln for the end of the quarter, so things got loaded extra tight in order to have everything glazed and fired before our Monday critique (which, of course, was moved online due to the COVID-19 precautions).
I'm picturing a lesson in SoftChalk that would include drawings or photographs. Students can sort correct hand positions versus incorrect hand positions. They can write or select answers about why these positions are correct. They could take pictures of their own hands or their own pots and identify what they've done correctly or incorrectly and what needs work. With a picture of a kiln interior, they could place things correctly or incorrectly. This would approximate hand-on activities without the interpersonal risk.
Raku firing (I admit, part of me feels about like this looks--things are on fire and the results are not entirely within our control).
What Cannot be Moved Online
Either scenario (one class meeting of 16 students all spread throughout the room) or two meetings of fewer students each solves the problem of getting students access to the wheels. The personal instruction which is both my favorite part of the class and probably the most effective part of the process, is perhaps insurmountable. I don't mean to be defeatist, but I think it is more difficult to apply instructions given at a different time or instructions that include small adjustments that you can barely see. But that gutting that part of the process does not mean that we can't approximate the content that students would receive in normal circumstances.
No idea how we could safely fire a raku kiln with 6' between participants. Maybe the COVID-19 risk will be gone by June when we usually fire.
Unfortunately, I think there are several parts of the class that may simply have to be skipped this quarter (or, optimistically, saved until after the COVID-19 threat has passed). I can imagine a way for students to load kilns one by one, but I usually supervise this process closely so that things don't break. If I were to, literally, step back during this process, the damage risks would increase. I'll have to think about whether that's worth it. Additionally, clay mixing might have to go and critiques will certainly have to move online.
Running a critique live is fairly relaxed, but converting it to writing for an online critique makes it look tedious.
The Next Weeks: Online Finals & Massive Planning Efforts
I've moved my live final critique for Monday and Wednesday of this week online, per instructions. I think the critiques will be able to accomplish the course objective of having students "Exhibit knowledge of functional glazing techniques in discussions and other assignments." But the critiques next week will be less pleasant, less fun, and involve more technical frustration than I like. There will also be fewer donuts to celebrate our accomplishments. Even local establishments like Don's Donuts is impacted by these restrictions.
Pottery finished last week by Jamie Barker in my winter throwing class, including our only final critique donut.
Tomorrow I anticipate there will be meetings about what we are doing next quarter. We are supposed to finish up Winter quarter on Friday, March 20, the return for Spring quarter on Tuesday, March 31. Assuming that the quarter doesn't get delayed, which some schools are doing, that gives faculty just over a week to make significant changes in their classes and solve intractable problems about delivery and access.
During the raku firing, someone's glaze dripped onto this sculpture by Ibet Vargas. The glaze dripped and pulled into a thread as the piece was removed from the kiln, then cooled into a tiny sliver of glass.
There are several workshops and lots of online training and assistance available to faculty next week, but, of course, most of us are at capacity with the usual end-of-quarter grading, cleaning, (firing), and paperwork next week. On top of that, many faculty (perhaps the 85% of classes that are not taught online) are scrambling to make major changes to move our finals online as well. All this is to say that I'm probably not the only one who took a significant amount of my weekend to revise my finals, communicate with students, and start planning for major changes in spring. And I won't be the only one to trade at least a portion of my spring break for solid chunks of intense planning and course development.
A full view of Ibet's slab-built sculpture (from above). She used horse-hair on the surface to create the black smoke lines
If you are also trying to move your pottery or art class online or observe social distancing for spring, what does your plan look like? What access and delivery issues have you solved? What resources are you using? Who knows of a virtual kiln loading app or game? I'd be happy to connect with you.
If you're a clay instructor and on Facebook, I know the Clay Buddies group has some conversation threads going about teaching online, but I haven't seen much about social distancing.
