Clay Construction

Today in the studio we built clay structures. We started with an assortment of coils and clay balls, examining them and thinking about how we could use them to build. Kian flattened a ball into a base, then used additional pieces to build up vertically before giving it a distinctive bend at the top. 

Jack made a horizontal piece with multiple laters, explaining, “This is a bumpy road. Old cars can go on it. It’s a little edgy. They might fall off. This is the water.”  

Jossie created a rainbow and Grace built a boat. They started with coils, working together to connect them to each other and to large pieces they had flattened into bases.  

Sam started by rolling balls with the clay, then pushing them down into flat shapes, then using the pieces to build a tower with very small pieces at the top. Connecting them all in a way that will ensure the structure holds together as the piece is dried and fired--what we call scoring and slipping--took a lot of hard work and patience.  

We talked about how long it would take to dry our pieces and fire them in the kiln to make them strong and hard. Jossie asked where the kiln was, so we decided then to go see it when we went outside later.

During our time in the outdoor classroom, we went to check out he kiln and even got to look inside. It was really interesting and definitely nothing like our ovens at home. Austin noticed how dusty it was inside, and wondered where all the dust came from. The children were very curious about how the clay goes into the kiln. Within a week or two, we'll get to find out when we load all of our new pieces.