Art at RMS

The kiln has arrived

When I started at RMS, there was a potter’s wheel stashed under the art teacher’s desk. I left it there for the first year, and just kept an eye on it. The next year, I took it out, and students and I tried it out. Not much luck. We weren’t even sitting at it right! The next year, I took pottery lessons and let the oldest students have one turn each. The following year, I installed a college student to sit at the wheel while the kids worked, so that all classes got to try. A generous parent and a potter also came in to help that year to help ensure our success. Pottery was no easy task in a space without a sink! But students loved using the wheel, so we carried on anyway.
This year, as I was preparing the art room for the kiln, the Boulder Potter’s Guild called and offered us a second wheel. Now, with a sink handy and two wheels to use, students have greater access to this challenging, exciting process.

Tandem Wheel throwing in the Clay Center

Using this Charles Brand etching press, students are able to create embossed prints. In this case, a collagraph plate was made using cardboard and cut paper shapes. After soaking and botting watercolor paper, the plate and the paper were run through the press under pressure, resulting in a clear "print" with no ink.

Middle school students recently explored the printmaking center. Serigraph and reduction relief processes were introduced, resulting in some innovative designs. Some students spent time carefully planning the overlay of color and image, while others worked more intuitively, making discoveries along the way. THIS is what we needed all those styrofoam meat trays for! "Printing plates" are cut from the trays and scratched with various tools, producing positive/negative designs for printing. Students were offered ink in several colors and made these prints(pictured below) over two class periods.

Reduction Print, by "S" age 13

Greeting card with overlap design.

Repeat design in four colors by "B" age 13