Last week at Summer Camp I had a group of teenagers. All of them had wheelthrown at last once before… so I knew it was going to be a fun week. They re-learned & practiced throwing on Monday & Tuesday, trimmed & decorated on Wednesday. But it was Thursday when I challenged them to making lidded jars! Yep, full-on lidded jars… complete with caliper-measured lids AND throwing off-the-hump. And they totally rocked it out!!!

This week I’m teaching a Wheelthrowing Summer Camp with a bunch of teenage girls! They’re all doing a great job & have already made a LOT of pots!!! Not bad for two days of camp… for today we switch to trimming, handles & detailing… and editing their “collections” keeping only the “good” ones! And who knows… there may even be a stamp or two used tomorrow?!

You know I loves me some fun tie-dye… but this is actually some colored splatters of glaze on the countertop before my Summer Camp kids cleaned it up!!!

One of my favorites from this week of Summer Camp…
Henry’s handbuilt fish mug… and of course, it’s a Pirate Fish with an eye-patch, right?!

Yeah… I don’t get it either… but its ADORABLE… and Henry was so excited about it!!!

I’ve always said that I kind of enjoy waxing the bottoms of pots… it’s the actual glazing part that I’m not a huge fan of… HA!!! So it wasn’t so painful yesterday during Summer Camp when I waxed all of the bottoms of the kids’ wheelthrown pots… while they were busy glazing their terra cotta handbuilt mugs! This table full is just the morning camp… and then I got to do it again for the afternoon camp kids too!!! Not too shabby for just two days of wheelthrowing, huh?

And why stop with a clean floor?…
My Summer Campers also volunteered to wash their ware boards both front & back before putting them away for the day.

Now if only we could get some of the adult pottery students to follow the kid’s lead… cleaning floors, cleaning wareboards… dare to dream, right???

Summer Camp is the best… especially when you have a great group of kids for the week! And quick enough they’ve all realized that I’m not kidding with Gary’s Summer Camp Rule #3… “Whatever mess you make, you WILL be cleaning up!” And they’ve been doing a great job with keeping the room clean at the end of the day… and smiling… and laughing… and helping each other… even though we’ve already had two spilled water buckets this week!

Everyone grab a sponge!!!

This week my Summer Campers have been throwing on the wheels… learning from scratch in three days!!! But today we switched to handbuilding. So we pulled out some terra cotta, some fun texture tools and they set-off to making their mugs. A lot of little hands doing a lot of scoring & slipping. Only a couple hours and they all created some great handmade mugs!!!

And yes… they pulled their own slabs!!!
No rolling pins. No slab roller. Just the good old fashioned way… and they crushed it.

Celebrating a little FLASHBACK FRIDAY with these wonderful chess pieces made by Mathieu last summer during Chess Camp at Lillstreet Art Center! He came in with a plan & made a wonderful version of the Terra Cotta Warriors. His chess set was all handbuilt with terra cotta in five days! He decided to keep his set unglazed to be more “authentic.” It was my favorite set of chess pieces from last summer!

And for those who don’t know… The TERRA COTTA ARMY was created by China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who began the construction of the army in 246 BC after he (then aged 13) ascended the throne. It was an afterlife army for Emperor Qin. It was believed that objects like statues can be animated in the afterlife. The clay soldiers remained untouched for more than 2000 years, until 1974, when they were unearthed by Chinese farmers. Experts estimate there are more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, and 670 horses.

So I guess when I told my Summer Campers to NOT get any glaze on the bottoms of their cups… something got lost in translation? Good thing they know how to use a sponge… start wiping!!!