Ceramics students started getting their hands messy to start the school year with a few small projects to help master basic techniques.

“By showing them a pinch pot, coil, and then slab method, from here on out we can work on projects,” art teacher Fred Rodriguez said. “Now they have all these different skills that they can then apply for the rest of the year. They’re not super creative, but they’re specific to the method that we’re using to build each one.”

Through this assignment, students have been well equipped with various skills to help them build projects for the rest of the year.

“I’ve learned a lot about ceramics technique and all the different ways to create something,” senior Natalie Trautman said. “I’ve also learned how to use all the different tools to help me get to my goal.”

Aside from the sculpting itself, students were allowed some artistic liberty with freedom to individually choose the order of the projects they worked on.

“Being that it’s a new class where most people haven’t done ceramics, I feel like students that want to push themselves and go for the harder ones do that first,” Rodriguez said. “For the students who are intimidated, instead of me making them do a certain one that they might not be interested in, it kind of gives them the option to hopefully make them a little more excited, or start easy and then get harder, or get the hard one over with.”

Trautman enjoyed this flexibility because it’s something different than what they would usually expect in a typical classroom setting.  

“I felt like it was more fun because there weren’t a lot of rules,” she said. “It was just me going at my own pace.”