create: hearts of gratitude

We painted the clay heart rattles with acrylic paint after they were fired to cone 05.

Recently I volunteered in Max's class to teach a clay lesson with my friend Desiree. The school has no art teacher, but the individual teachers do give some art lessons. It's not as regular as math or humanities. As an artist I find that so sad. Not only because as a society it seems we have devalued the arts, but also because when I was a kid art class or wood shop or sewing or anything that had to do with using my hands was the place I felt most at home in myself. It was also the one place I excelled compared to math or history or a foreign language. I was good at something, and that was using my hands to make things. Every child needs a "win" at school. I'm willing to bet there are children today in classrooms all over our nation that might excel in art - if they were given an opportunity to do so. The more narrow the curriculum the fewer students it serves . . . but I digress.

We had a very short 30 minutes to fit in a project of gratitude and creativity. Miraculously the kids were able to listen and create one or two hollow heart rattles for their mom and teacher in that miniscule window of time. Despite allowing them to dry completely and slowly ramping up my kiln a couple of them did explode - this was my fault for not being explicit in my instructions about air pockets in closed forms. A hole, or several were put in each heart, but clearly that didn't do the trick for all of the hearts.

These heart rattles have little clay balls in them and they make a lovely sound when you shake them. We decided to use acrylic paint to decorate them. It was something we had in abundance and a medium a lot of the kids are comfortable with. I thought it was interesting that the kids were pretty quiet while they painted, especially if you compare it to how loud they were during the building phase of the project. I think they were all happy with their results. I sure was.

Three things I learned while teaching this lesson: 

1. I learned to not rush the first step,  To set an intention. In this case, a one minute meditation on gratitude (or even 30 seconds) would have helped at least half the class with a mindset towards gratitude and a stillness to listen.
2. I learned that it is better to take my time to explain in extreme detail every step, no matter how obvious it may seem to me - even if time is limited. Maybe even plan this part out. (Duh.)
3. I learned that some kids will do their own thing anyhow. And that's okay!

It was a complete joy to work and create together with Desiree and Ilana, Max's teacher. I'm looking forward to teaching art this summer at Max's former school, Tara Redwood. It's going to be a whole lotta fun!