GOOD MORNING!!! Welcome Back!

PLEASE PUT ON AN ART APRON TO PROTECT YOUR CLOTHES AND HAVE A SEAT

THANK YOU!

Let us welcome Mr. Harry Santen! Also known as HARRY POTTER. Mr. Santen is a lawyer with many talents and interests! Mr. Santen is here to share his knowledge and love of clay with you. Thank you Mr. Santen for offering your time, your kiln, and sharing your knowledge with the students of St. Francis.

Mr. Richard- Thank you Mr. Richard for all you do to contribute to our community and helping with the clay program!

Welcome!

What is Clay?

Where is Clay from? What kind of objects are made out of clay?

 

Today you will make

a clay mask!

Masks have been created all over the world over many years. In some cultures masks are used in special ceremonies or rituals. When you create your mask imagine that your mask has a purpose; what will your mask be used for? What features will be important to your mask? Answer who? what? When? Where? Why?

Carefully form the clay slab over the mask mold. Begin to form the features of the face.

Remember that if you are trying to show proportion realistically the eyes are almost halfway down the face. When planning your facial features look for basic shapes to represent each feature.

Get a feel for the clay and form the features with your fingertips- be gentle when handling the clay- you do not want your mask to be too thin.

Cut off the extra clay around the sides of your mask.

Steps to Making a Clay Mask:

Slip and

Score

Use the score and slip method to add clay pieces such as hair, eyebrows, lips, ears to your mask. To make pieces use the extra clay you have to roll coils, cut out shapes, add scales, etc… SCORE AND SLIP!

Use a tool to add texture to your mask. Use a tool to make a hole or two holes so that you

will be able to hang your mask once it is fired Use a tool to write your name on the mask- on the

side. Now your mask will need to dry before it can be

fired! Please help with cleaning up your area, the tools, the

floor, and the tables.

Clay Busts

ElizabethCatlett

Born in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Catlett has lived in Mexico since 1947. She attended Howard University School of Art and the University of Iowa, where she studied with American Realist painter Grant Wood, who urged students to work with the subjects they knew best. For Catlett, this meant black people, and especially black women, and it was at this point that her work began to focus on African Americans. Her piece Mother and Child, done in limestone in 1939 for her thesis,[1] won first prize in sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago in 1940.

Catlett went on to study ceramics at the Art Institute of Chicago. She first taught art at the George Washington Carver School, an alternative school dedicated to educating the working people of Harlem. Catlett continued teaching as head of the Art Department at Dillard University in New Orleans, and she became the first woman to direct the Sculpture Department at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City.

ElizabethCatlett

Born: April 15, 1915

Mother & Child, ‘40 Sharecropper, linocut, 1952

Young Girl, terra cotta, 1946 Tired, terra cotta, 1946

Pensive, cedar, 1963

Black Unity, mahogany, 1968

Mother & Child, 1993

Singing Head, 1983

Elizabeth Catlett

Harriet, linocut,

1975On the Subway, 1986

       "Survivor" is a linoleum block print made by Elizabeth Catlett in 1983. It's a striking image, based on a photograph by Dorothea Lange called “Ex-slave with a Long Memory” taken in Alabama in 1937 or 1938. Like much of Catlett's work, "Survivor" is a striking evocation of dignity in the face of hardship. But in addition to the power of the piece, for me it brings up two art-making issues. The first is the carving. I'm always scoping out other artists' carving, of course, and Catlett has a style sufficiently different from my own that I can't imagine ever thinking the way she does about dark and light, and filling space. The apron is really interesting because I never think to use that sort of texture. I’d probably have either made it solid white or maybe very careful cross-hatching. Either way it wouldn’t have had the same worn look. It would have been too jarring and taken the focus from the woman’s face. Good thing Catlett doesn't think like me!

        The second issue this piece brings to mind, though, is that of adaptation. As I mentioned, this piece is based on another artist's photograph. Comparing the two images, you'll see how closely they're related. You'll also notice that the pictures face opposite ways, because Catlett must have copied the image forwards on her linoleum block, and then the printing would have reversed it. Catlett has also changed the background. "Survivor" comes from a series of prints, many of which are based on other sources. For example, Catlett did portraits of Phillis Wheatley and Harriet Tubman based on antique engravings.        Generally speaking, the guideline about using other people's images is supposed to be whether you make something demonstrably new and different from the original. Under this test Catlett has clearly made a different piece of art from the piece that Lange made. Nevertheless, I find myself extremely squeamish about the possibility of unintentional plagiarism. If I need reference photos for something, whenever possible I try to use my own photos because I feel so nervous about copying someone else's image. If I need other people's photos, I usually make sure to use several so that the image I draw and carve does not too closely resemble any one of them. (Ahh, it's almost enough to make one pine for the good old days of theNuremberg Chronicle when no one worried about their sources!) It's a touchy question and one that most artists have to wrestle with at least sometimes. But thank goodness Elizabeth Catlett didn't allow such fears to stop her from creating this beautiful piece.

Ex-Slave With a Long Memory, Dorothea Lange, 1937

Survivor, Elizabeth Catlett, 1983

Face Jugs

The ugly faces were made on the jugs and put at grave sites to scare the evil spirits away. The tradition of pottery with faces dates back to Egyptian times and appears in many other cultures throughout the ages.  The first vessel created in the US was created by an unknown Massachusetts potter around 1810.Today, face jugs are prized by collectors around the United States for their comical and sincere facial expressions.

Between 1810 and 1865, an abundance of functional pottery was produced in the remote Edgefield Potteriesin South Carolina and sold to neighboring counties and states. Edgefield Potteries was worked in part by artisan slaves who turned the pots, pushed the wheels, carried the pottery and loaded the kilns. In their free time, some of the artisans made pottery of their own choice. Many of them chose to make jugs and pots now known as Face Vessels. These were often stoneware jugs modeled in the shape of human faces. They were most often alkaline glazed stoneware in simple, earthy tones.Though there are many gaps in historical data regarding the making, use and meaning of the face vessel pottery, there is no doubt that the vessels were original, functional artistic expressions of the African slave culture of the time. This all adds to the mystery of possible deeper meaning of the Face Vessels in the slave culture.  Few of the skilled potters who made Face Vessels have been identified by name and their inspiration for making face vessels is really unknown. Researchers speculate that the vessels may have had religious or burial significance, or that they reflect the complex responses of people attempting to live and maintain their personal identities under cruel and often difficult conditions. Face Vessels have been found along the routes of the Underground Railroad and on gravesites, both indicating how highly they were valued and how closely connected they were with the enslaved African American’s own culture.

North American Influences From the Mayan and Aztec cultures of South America. This face jug represents the

rain god, Tlaloc. The face jug shows Tlaloc wearing a head dress, it is said that this is where he stored fertile waters.