Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: summer camp

Today my Summer Campers moved over to the Metals Department at Lillstreet. For two days we’ve worked with clay, and now we’re going to stat working with metals. They’re first task was to start designing their cutlery. Keeping their them in mind. We want them to make sure their cutlery pieces go along with the pieces they’ve already made in clay.

And then my co-teacher Pam Robinson started giving them a demonstration on how to cut their metal pieces. It’s a whole new set of skills & tools that they need to learn about. The kids quickly realize how much more fun it is to play in the clay!!!... shhh, don’t tell Pam that.

After the demo, the kids started cutting. Saw blades moving… up & down… up & down… and breaking!!! If you push too hard, give it a twist, or jerk the saw there’s a really good chance the blade will break. Understandable. But we want to encourage the kids to be careful and not break too many saw blades. So Pam & I make it a small contest… whoever breaks the fewest blades will win a prize that Pam made for them!!!

After they finish cutting their pieces, and filing, and sanding… it’s time to add some texture. So it’s back to demo time with Pam. Now encouraging the kids to make noise and pound hammers on metal. Whoo-hoo… it’s going to be a long & noisy afternoon with the kids!!!

And after a lot of hammering & broken saw blades, Pam is still smiling!!!

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