Of course it wasn’t all fun & games in camp… as Isla didn’t quite pull her hair back far enough while throwing at the wheel! Her hair dangling too close to the spinning ball of clay. After several warnings… she ended up with a glop of clay tangled up in her curly locks!!! I gave her three options…

1. scissors

2. wash it out in the gross slop sink

3. let it dry completely and crumble it out later that night at home.

She chose option three… so this chunk dangled in her hair all day!!!
A good reminder for the other kids with long hair… listen to Gary!!!

Because I had such an amazing group of summer campers this week, I decided to go a little further with them… as they “requested” to do the Blindfolded Wheelthrowing Challenge! Turns out that Isla was one of the kids in the hallway that saw us doing a couple weeks ago. She brought it up.. and everyone jumped on the chance to try it out!!! So much fun to watch them throwing… and they all had a WONDERFUL TIME giving it a whirl. Most with good success & plenty of giggles!

This week in summer camp, I had a great group of “first-time” wheelthrowers! However, one of them was struggling a bit the first day and kept opening the ball of clay too wide and kept ending up with a “doughnut” of clay in their hands. Over & over again!!! I made a deal with Avery… that if they could figure it out and stop “ripping off doughnuts” I would teach them how to throw doughnuts on the wheel on purpose!

Avery figured it out… and many of my summer camp kids made clay doughnuts to celebrate Avery’s sweet success!!!

While spending many of our Summer Camp lunches up on the Lillstreet Rooftop… it’s been fun watching the beekeeper take care of the rooftop bee hives. He’s been great & very informative with the kids. And some of the freshest homegrown honey is available at the Lillstreet Front Desk! YUMMY!!!

This past week of Summer Camp was wheelthrowing & handbuilding with the kids! One of them came in on the first day wearing this shirt… “Together We Grow.” Nice thought… but I felt as though I just had to update it a little bit!

You know you’re “in for a day” when it starts like this!
Sure, I would love to say it was one of my Summer Campers who spilled the bucket of slip.

But it wasn’t.

It was just me rushing around this morning trying to gather all of my supplies for the last day of this week’s camp. WHOOPS!!! Luckily, I scooped it all up & the kids used it anyway… and were none the wiser!!!

This may look like a pile of garbage to some… but for my Summer Campers this week it is a pile of POTENTIAL!!! Another week of my “large sculptures camp” and the kids started today to work their “sculptural magic” with these empty boxes! More to come…

After they knocked out the lidded jar project, I knew they would be up for an even bigger & better challenge! So I pulled out the blindfolds (and towels?) and I challenged Summer Campers last week to wheelthrowing while blindfolded. I think they were a little anxious at first, but quickly realized it’s not as hard as it sounded. As long as you take it step-by-step, you realize that you can throw just my touch & muscle-memory. And they all did a GREAT job… and had so much fun that they asked if they could do it AGAIN!!!

Of course I said YES!!!

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?!