Collaborative Class Clay Collage

Today is class Amanda and I did our themed based lesson from our "Mark Making: Making a Mark" unit. The image above is the final collage that the entire class constructed together using action and clay.

To begin the lesson we created a "class definition" of mark making by having students come up and either write specific words or draw "marks" on the white board. This conversation was very useful in developing a starting point for what the class would understand mark as. Terms such as "leaving an impression" and "additive/subtractive" were mentioned. As the lesson went on I kept adding certain terms to the white board as well to further develop this class definition.

The demo was then led by Amanda who demonstrated techniques in replicating texture onto pieces of clay. We explained the process of making quick gestural studies (being sure to define what gesture was) and prompted the students to create four forms of their own based on the presented natural objects. Feedback about this part was that it was successful in terms of loosening students up who were generally perfectionists and it was good that we warned them not to get too attached to their forms.

Then we presented work by a few artists, creating a class conversation about key terms such as chance, action, mark making, composition, and positive/negative space. We examined art work by Shinohara, Anastasi, and Zemer Peled in order to do this. In conversation about Peled we talked about energy and certain releases that the physical aspect of throwing clay may have. Feedback that we received about this was that it was successful in that we asked further questions based on student comments and did not dismiss what anyone was saying. Something to consider though in this presentation was developing a bit more about each artist.

After the presentation we began our class collaborative clay collage. I had a blast. We started the students off by throwing one form each and were all experimenting together, figuring out techniques to get the clay to stick, ways to throw it. We stepped back after this first throw and had a conversation. What did we notice? How were the pieces of clay interacting? Did the texture make it interesting. We threw two more, we spoke again. We threw a final piece and had a final discussion about how this work had developed. The class spoke about how this process made them feel. They had fun, they let out some stress.

The process of making this was extremely exciting. I would be absolutely thrilled to do this with an actual class of high school students. They way that they interacted with each other through the the making of this was inspiring. I feel as though this could set up a great classroom dynamic early on in the school year. Of course with the proper trust and safety precautions. Overall I was happy with what happened today. It was definitely exciting to this lesson play out in such a great way.