Teaching Experience

For this weeks project I taught my friend Melissa how to make beads. She did not create a design from scratch, but I had her look at my flower cane and ask her what she would want to add to the design to make it look better. She decided that she wanted to create a layer that had two alternating colors but instead of having squares like the previous layer she wanted to have circles. She picked out the two colors she wanted which were orange and white, and I started explaining to her step by step what to do. The first thing she did was take the clay extruder and put white clay in it and extruded a long white piece. Then she cut it into pieces that were the length of the cane that she is adding to, and did the same thing with the orange clay. After the white and orange clay were cut into equal lengths I told her to then place the logs one color after another onto the log. After she was done adding all the pieces on the cane I told her to then roll out the cane so that all of the new pieces were part of the cane. After she was done with that I asked her if she wanted to add anything else to the cane. She wanted to add a single layer of turquoise to go around the whole cane. I then explained to her how to do it and she followed the steps I instructed. She took the clay and put it through the pasta machine and rolled it out on the thickest setting. Then she wrapped the piece around the cane. I told her to roll it out again and she made the first cut into the cane and it looked great!

The reason why I taught my friend how to make a clay cane or to add on to a clay cane was to see if I have mastered the skill enough to teach someone else how to successfully make a clay design. I would say that with the results I did a very good job on teaching her how to make a clay cane and think that I have the basic skilled mastered. I also decided I wanted to teach my friend because I wanted her to add on to my cane, so it is a project with different creative perspectives. Next week I will try to create a new design I have not attempted and maybe learn a new skill to apply to my clay making.

                       Here is a picture of Melissa extruding the clay 

                     This is Melissa putting on the pieces to the cane. 

                       Here is Melissa using the pasta machine

                           Finished Project

The Beauty of Frugality

This week I was still stuck on last week’s blog topic of reducing waste. After reading the Article “Making Do: The Aesthetics of Frugality” by Rebecca L. Lawrence, it inspired me to think out of the box. It inspired me to try something new besides making various kinds of beads, but to make new objects out of the clay canes that I have already made. In this article Rebecca speaks about that where she grew up in Northern New England, she would hear the phrase “make it do, or do without” (Page 23). This quote describes how these people would make crafts out of items that were not useful anymore, and would turn them into something useful. For example they would rip up old sheets and turn them into a rug to warm up the floors (page 23). This whole idea of taking materials that were not useful anymore and making them into something beautiful and useful got me thinking deeper.


I decided that I was going to use the clay canes I had already made and use them all to make different objects other than beads. The first project I did was taking a plain boring pen and turned it into a beautiful colorful clay covered pen. I did this by first taking the ink part out of the pen. Then I took clay scrapes that I had from other clay projects and put it through the pasta machine so it was flat. Using all of the different clay scrapes that were different colors made the sheet of clay to look like marble. Then I rolled the clay around the pen, and started taking the cut pieces from all the different canes I have made and putting them onto the pen. After all of the cut pieces from the canes were put on the pen I rolled the pen so the pieces would stick. I then baked it at 200 degrees for 20 minutes, and after it was done baking I put the ink back in the pen. The finished pen looked nothing like it used to, and now it was aesthetically beautiful and the clay that was going to waste was now used.

Here is the pen before

After the clay scapes were rolled out

(Has a marble look to it)

The pen with the clay sheet wraped around it.

The finished product!!

After I made the pen I decided I wanted to make something else. I thought of making a drink coaster, because when you cut the pieces from the clay canes they are flat, and making a coaster would be easy. I thought if I cut a bunch of my clay canes and put them all together it could create a beautiful coaster. I cut the different clay canes and arranged the different pieces into a round flat coaster. Making this coaster took barely anytime, and I was using materials that were going to go to waste if I had not used them. After baking the coaster it cooled down and was hard and ready to use. I showed the coaster and the pen to my friend and she was amazed that I could make something like that, and she thought I should sell them in stores. They are beautiful but I’m not sure I’m good enough yet to sell my designs in stores.

The finished coaster

Reading Rebecca L. Lawrence’s article was very beneficial for me, because before I read her article I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to do anything with my extra clay canes and scrape pieces. Not only did I make two beautiful pieces of art but I was able to reduce waste at the same time. For my next post I hope to be able to teach someone how to make a clay cane, and to have them add on to the cane as well.



Sources:

Lawrence, R. L. (1999). Use it up Wear it out Make it do Or do without. Making Do: The Aesthetics of Frugality (pp. 23-25). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.