Salmon Bells

A few weeks ago, I visited my daughter's elementary school class to make bells with the kids. The kids are studying salmon and are raising alevin (baby salmon) to later release. 

bells in the kiln after firing

I've done bell projects for two or three years running at another elementary school in town. In that situation, I just show the kids how to make bells. With this class, I had coordinated with the teacher ahead of time and I knew what the kids were studying, so I was able to integrate the lesson with their class a little more carefully.

my example bell and a student bell

It made a big difference that this class had roughly 20 kids, whereas the other group has about 75. I brought 3 students from YVCC to help with the project and they were able to station themselves with a group of students to help the kids with their projects. 

a student's fish

Apparently one of the student-teachers at the elementary school, who is Native American, brought a type of bell with him to class to show the kids how they traditionally shake bells when they are catching salmon (I think I got that right--it came to me second-hand). So the bell project fit in quite well with their class experience.

a student's bell with fish and eggs (or water bubbles, but I'm guessing eggs, based on the conversations)

I also knew the class had been discussing scientific observation, so I started out their lesson by having them handle wet, dry and fired clay and tell me what they noticed about how it felt. I then had them drop the dry clay in a cup of water and observe what happened (the clay released bubbles of air and eventually fell apart--the clay term is "slaking").

another student's take on salmon

After making observations, we made salmon together (the kids and the teacher had to help me get the right amount of fins in place) and then I led them through the process of making a bell with clay balls inside to rattle.

this fish has a lot of character

I took the bells home to fire, then back to school for the kids to paint with watercolor paints. They will shake the bells when they go to release the salmon they've raised.

a couple kids at one table made wiggly handles like this (water plants, I'm guessing)

Though the kids were fairly young, they were all able to build a functioning bell with at least one fish on it. My students helped avoid a few squish-mistakes, but mostly the kids followed along well.

two girls had their fish under their handles. one explained that the salmon was swimming under a rock

It is always fun to see how the kids approach their bells differently. After the flat bottom and pinch pot top, the kids were able to add fish, drawings, handles and other decorations. It is clear sometimes that a few kids saw each others and put on similar decorations, but there is also a lot of variety in approach.

my kid's bell with eggs, fish, tree, water plants, and more

After the lesson, it was also fun to watch the kids clean up. They clearly have a routine and classroom rules. They had no trouble adapting their approach to our tools and the clay mess on their tables.

another side of her bell with the waterfall/tunnel and water plants

 
After we got home, I let my daughter continue working on her bell (like I had a choice). She had already included eggs and fish on her bell at school, but the end result includes a waterfall, salmon and alevin and an estuary. Alevin and estuary were her words, not mine.

Apple Valley Elementary Clay Project

At the end of January I visited a local elementary school to lead a clay project. This was the second year of me doing this clay project with the kids, about 70 second graders. 

me telling them what to do. I look annoyed but I wasn't

The Apple Valley PTA has been organizing these events to supplement the nonexistent arts program at the school. Last weekend the Yakima Herald did a feature on the arts program. The images they show are from the sculpture project led by local artist Mindy Clark.

kids preparing the balls to go inside the bells

Four of my clay students joined me at the elementary school to help run the project. The PTA also brought in quite a few volunteers and the project went smoothly, for the most part.

kids adding slip to the scored edge of their pinch pots

We had the students make bells or rattles by forming pinch pots and attaching them to flat slabs of clay with small balls of clay inside to make noise. The whole group completed the project in less than an hour and most kids had a chance to decorate their bells.

kids decorating their bells

The lesson happened right before the Super Bowl and it looked as if they kids were in uniform, about half of them wearing jerseys and the rest in Seahawk colors.

a finished bell

Because of the timing of the project, there were also quite a few football themed bell decorations and I set my student volunteers to checking for strength in the field goal structures on top of the bells.

two finished bells

Back at YVCC, I had my class load the kids work into the kiln to bisque fire. My students were interested to see the clay was a different color and the volunteers told them how different the clay felt compared to our class clay.

I cut the kids faces out of the pictures because I didn't get consent from all of them to publish the pictures. The pictures with the kids are pretty cute.

My students at YVCC checked for strong attachments and made sure the kids all created pieces that would survive the firing without cracks or explosions. One of my students was surprised when she heard the internal ball rattling around inside the bell. They don't always make noise until after firing.

another finished bell

Next week the PTA volunteers will pick up the kids pieces and the kids will have a chance to paint their bells and take them home.

Mistakes Firing other People's Work

Last Saturday I taught a workshop for Larson Gallery. It was my last class of 2013, since I will be on sabbatical in the fall and I don't teach during the summer. The class was called "Clay Bells Ring." I had five adults and six kids, plus my own daughter. In an hour and a half everyone made a bell and a few people made other stuff besides.

painting a tiny bell

My daughter was well-behaved and even helpful, though she was one of the youngest. She organized and set out some of the materials, helped me roll some slabs before class and then answered a few questions while I was introducing the project to the class.

rolled texture and sprigs 

The students made the bells by wrapping slabs around paper tubes. Some of the students rolled their own slabs, others used the slabs I had rolled ahead of time. All the students, adults and kids, seemed to really enjoy impressing the wet clay with stamps and rollers. They did this before shaping the bell and after.

   

stamped texture (on blue) and pinecone rolled texture (on white)

Students used stamps and rollers as well as sprigs (clay molds) and found objects. One of my favorite rolled textures (above right) came from some skinny pinecones we picked up that morning at my friend's house when we went to borrow her toilet paper tubes for the class.

decorating with underglazes

After they formed the bells, students decorated their bells with colored underglazes. At home, after the bells dried, I applied a layer of clear glaze to most of them before firing. 

sharing underglazes

The students seemed to have fun. Everyone made a bell, everyone followed the directions, and a few people even made mugs, containers. or other items after they finished their bells. Unfortunately, I made a mistake in firing the work, so not all of it survived.

finished work at home waiting to dry

At home I let the work dry for most of a week, glazed it and loaded it into the kiln. I set the kiln sitter (the automatic shut-off for the kiln once it reaches temperature) and closed the lid. I planned to fire it the next morning. In the morning, I woke up early and came straight down to the kiln and turned it on. 

fired work after glazing

Unfortunately I must not have been all the way awake when I turned on the kiln because I skipped a step. My home kiln has two dials to control the temperature of the elements that heat the kiln. The dials can be set to "off," "low," "med," or "high." The dials control the temperature, the kiln sitter controls the shut off. When the kiln reaches a certain temperature, a cone in the kiln sitter melts, dropping a metal piece which automatically shuts off the kiln. There is also a timer that will shut off the kiln if time runs out.

kiln sitter (off)

We have this same setup at school. I tell the students to turn the dials to "off" when they turn off the kiln or as they load the kiln even if the kiln sitter is not set yet and the kiln is off. However, I didn't take my own advice at the end of last summer or when I loaded the kiln this time around. I had left the dials on "high" from the last firing (in September). When I woke up early and turned the kiln on, I somehow forgot to check or adjust the dials. Instead of turning the kiln on low to preheat the work for an hour, then gradually turning up the temperature over several hours, I turned the kiln on high right away.

explosion

Apparently I woke up completely about 45 minutes later and realized that I hadn't touched the dials in the morning. I rushed in to the kiln to check and discovered that some work had already exploded. I turned off the kiln, removed the bits of clay that were too small to save and replaced the work that was still intact.

smithereens

As far as I can tell only one piece was completely destroyed and one was broken into more than 4 pieces. Two pieces lost their handles and another piece lost its base. Interestingly, the only pieces damaged were either rather thick (coil handles, etc) or were knocked into something else.

Most of the work survived and fired just fine. Two pieces with handles lost part or all of the handle, but I fired them anyway because I couldn't find the handle pieces. I did some repairs to the piece that lost its bottom and the other piece that was broken into several sections. 

this guy lost his nose and handle

I was surprised that the pieces were so hard to identify after I removed them from the hot kiln. The underglaze, raw clay and glaze all looked the same when hot, though when I loaded the kiln, the underglaze color was visible and the glazed areas looked pink. It was hard to tell where the top or colored section of a piece was. Part of the reason I had to remove the work from the kiln after it exploded (rather than just continuing to fire) was that I didn't know which end was up. If the glaze were at the bottom of the explosion, it would melt and fuse to the shelf during firing. 

underglaze fired without glaze

repaired bell

I will take the work into Larson Gallery today but I am also including a note telling people they can stop by my studio and remake their work if they choose. The pieces I repaired look okay, but the repairs are relatively obvious and there were ones I couldn't repair. I wouldn't want people to feel cheated because I made a sleepy mistake. (On the other hand, I have always thought that a certain percentage of any given clay class population enjoys the explosions. When I used to teach kids classes, a few boys would always ask to blow stuff up.)

mini-bell

Second Grade Clay

Last week I did a clay project with a group of second graders at a local elementary school. There were roughly 70 kids at nine tables. We were in a gym and unfortunately the acoustics of the room were not ideal for speaking over a multitude of kids. I had not requested a microphone. Before I got there, I wouldn't have considered that I needed one. Seventy is a lot of kids and though they were focused and well behaved, it was hard for them to be very quiet once they had started working and it was hard for me to speak loudly enough for them to hear me.

an airplane, some turtles and some other finished bells

The project was arranged by the school PTA and I was impressed by how well they coordinated everything. I emailed back and forth with my contact person maybe 30 times before the event. She was very clear about what they expected and why they were doing the project. The school doesn't have any art classes, which I find shocking, so the PTA has undertaken to encourage artists and educators from the community to do one-day projects with the kids to enrich their education. I am hopeful that McCleary decision may change this unfortunate situation in the coming years.

a kitty bell

In the meantime, I believe the PTA is still looking for artists to teach short lessons with the kids in a variety of media. I'd be happy to put local artists in touch with them. I found that the woman who contacted me was very thorough and easy to work with. She asked what we needed and got it all ahead of time so that all I brought to the school were a few example pieces. some clay stamps and a printed sheets of illustrated directions for the project. The teachers also had a handy clapping thing they did to get the students attention and turn down the volume in the gym.

The step-by-step directions I had on each table

The project seemed to go well, despite how difficult it was for the kids to hear. There were quite a few PTA parents and some teachers there to help. I'm guessing some of them had some clay experience, because some of the tables did their pinch pots before I got around to giving those directions. I also brought with me a couple of students from YVCC to help with the project. They worked with different tables helping kids do the project and making sure the kids had enough clay and attached their pieces well.

The flower/princess on the right has interesting eyes

The kids behaved very well and didn't seem to have much trouble making their bells. A few kids had pinch pots larger than their bases, but they were able to add more clay to make the base larger. A few kids squished their bells at some point during the process, but they seemed to have fun anyway and I think their bells should be able to be fired, even if they won't make much noise.

The most interesting thing by far was to see how the kids decorated their work. There seemed to be trends by table, so that one table had several turtles, another had several seahorses. One table had a bunch of very well crafted princesses and butterflies. The sea life table was impressive for how different their designs were from my examples. There were at least two seahorses and one arrangement of a seashell and other ocean stuff on top.

a seahorse

Another table that made me laugh was the one where several kids made turtles, like my example, but added top hats to the turtles' heads. A few kids added legs underneath their bell shapes. I didn't notice the legs until I picked up the pieces at the end of the day, but they were a neat effect. My turtle example's legs were stuck out to the side.

sea creatures, large turtles and a variety of patterns and textures on the tops

There was an energetic group of boys at the front table. Right after I was introduced and before I could give more directions than "pick up some clay" one of the boys already had a question for me. It turned out to be a good question (he was asking if they got to keep the stuff they made) but I was afraid it would set the tone for the whole day. Their table did end up requesting a lot of help but they also stayed on task and finished their work.

a princess/lady in amongst a variety of other bells

Unfortunately I didn't get particularly good pictures of the kids' work. I didn't take any during the event because I was so busy. One of the teachers did, but I don't know if I have permission to share the images that have the kids in them. I did take some pictures at the end of the event, after I went around and checked all the pieces to make sure they wouldn't explode in the kiln and to make sure they wouldn't fall apart when moved. Apparently I was tired, because the pictures aren't very clear.

a couple princess, something that now looks like a cat, and at least one turtle

I am hoping to get new pictures after the work comes out of the kiln. The work is being fired by a local high school art teacher, but it needs to dry, some of it quite a lot, before being fired. A few kids seemed to believe that taking a huge solid chunk of clay and sticking it on top of their hollow clay would be good. Usually I give students three rules for clay: 1) always score and slip to attach clay to clay, 2) always have an air escape for any air pockets and 3) never make any part of the clay thicker than your thumb. We didn't get around to the third rule for these kids.

a turtle with a top hat

There will be an art show open house at the school at the end of March. I am planning to go. It should be interesting to see what else the kids have been doing. I don't know if the kids will have their finished work by then, but I believe the PTA plans to have them paint the bells when they come out of the kiln.

the seashell still life, but this picture doesn't do it justice

Thanks to Anne Rojan and the Apple Valley PTA and teachers, Debbie Sundlee, Mike Hiler and Grace Keller for your help on this project. And thanks to the kids for making it fun.