Travora, Stacy & Scott

While Travora, Stacy, and Scott were still Boston Arts Academy high school students, they took the commuter rail train out to Ashland from Boston three days in a row in Feb. of 2016. I made a connection with a teacher in their school previously; he found out they had interest in going to me for pottery classes. (notes about this at the end of this post)

These polite and thoughtful youngsters have continued to come once a month to spend a day making pottery ever since June 2016. They are now all in college or working. They say they will continue to come for classes for the rest of my life. :)

We have a good time together doing pottery, chatting, eating together after class, and sometimes playing a game. I am honored to get to spend time with them and call them my friends. They teach me a lot!

 

Travora

 

"I have never done pottery before. I thought of all visual art as something that was out of reach. I was never good at doing anything 2 dimensional, and because of that, I thought that I wasn't capable of creating art. With pottery, you work with something material, rather than focusing solely on an idea in your head. I think that's why I could do it. Instead of working with my hand, a pencil, and paper, I could transfer my thoughts into the clay. I could feel the change happening, rather than seeing it. I could have more control and be more involved. Pottery really is a physical art. Thank you! It was an amazing experience." - Travora

Glazing her creative mug with sculptural lid, Oct. 2017

 

This lid, with "Don't Worry" on it, fits the container nicely.

Stacy

Stacy likes to make fun faces:

 

Stacy carving (above), finished piece (below)

 

Scott

Scott started making miniature animals before the other students coming to Studio Together. His work-in-progress on shelves inspired other young students to make small animal sculptures.

Scott is doing a series of fruit sculptures.

 

This is Scott in Oct. 2017 painting layers of underglaze on his pomegranate container. 

Work in progress (above), finished (below).

egg cup

miniature pitcher and plate

 

He does delicate work.

This is how I made a connection that led to my relationship with the three students above:

Boston Arts Academy

One morning near the end of Jan. 2016, I volunteered to help high school students trying out the pottery wheel for the first time, during their week of special classes called "Intersession."

I helped the teacher in the school, Steve, work with students working on 4 wheels at a time.

This is what Steve wrote me afterwards:

"Thanks so much for being with us last week. 

I can't tell you how great it was to have another hand on deck! 

Students made some great work during the week and 

having so many have their first attempt at the wheel with you surely helped."

Students and their work made by the end of that week.