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!!!

Today my Summer Campers switch from wheelthrowing to trimming… and carving, decorating, stamping, adding handles & a lot more to make their pots more special… and thinner! No plain paperweights this week – HA!!!

Another week of Wheelthrowing Summer Camp…
bring on the kids, bring out the sponges!!!

Last week at Summer Camp, we had an other week of large sculptures… and a great Sculpture Gallery Show on Friday! So much fun watching my campers build & paint these large pieces during the week… as well as memorizing fifty famous artists & sculptors along the way!

So my campers this week started painting their big sculptures today… a lot of paint went on their sculptures… but some became palette “masterpieces” on paper plates too!!!

So yesterday afternoon, there “may” have been a strange sighting outside of Lillstreet Art Center. There was “rumor” of a giraffe standing out on the corner of Montrose & Ravenswood!!! In Chicago?… Shocking, right?! Well, not so shocking for one of my Summer Campers this week who made his life-sized baby giraffe in Sculpture Camp! Murray worked hard on his giraffe… so we just had to show him off to the world!!!