The school where I am teaching is an academically successful, rural high school that is filled to the brim with around 840 wonderful students. We serve our military community by educating students whose parents serve or work at the USMC and Naval facilities at Camp Lejeune or Cherry Point, the two Coast Guard stations, and/or Bogue Air Field.
I teach many students across all grade levels as the only art teacher serving my high school, which includes the beginning, intermediate, proficient, advanced and AP art students with an average of 24-28 students per class as well as serving as my school's National Art Honor Society adviser.
Students have expressed an interest in wanting to learn further techniques in clay in both hand building and wheel throwing. To accommodate this we will be starting an after school ceramics club. Our need for this new adventure is providing glazes for students to glaze their projects. We are hoping to gain glazes so that students will be able to glaze their beautiful ceramic creations!
My Project
Students in all of my art classes have expressed an interest in learning more about hand-built and wheel-thrown ceramics. To accommodate this, we will be starting up an after school ceramics program. I have 15 years of prior ceramics experience and have set up our classroom to be as efficient as possible in working with clay. We have borrowed a pug mill from a local potter and have been recycling our used clay for over a year now to be as green as possible in the classroom.
Through your support, students will be able to experience the wonderful art of creating hand-built and wheel-thrown pottery that is utilitarian and food safe.
Our biggest need in starting up our after school ceramics program is providing glazes for our students to glaze their wheel-thrown and hand-built projects. Glazes are expensive and do not fit in our budget this year. By providing glazes, students will be able to create food-safe vessels, bowls, and mugs whereas now our alternative is for students to acrylic paint their creations, not allowing them to be functional ware.
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