9: CLAY: Exploring materiality
June 24, 2018
Introduction: Understanding Materiality
This class was specially reserved for a special guest, our first Art class teacher, Shayari De Silva. (She’s taught before several children were even born) Lately, she has been exploring pottery quite seriously, so whom better to share the clay class with!
We started off by sitting in a circle, in a typical spin the bottle fashion, we spun a glass jar until it pointed at one student. The selected child would be given a blindfold, and we then presented him/her with a material to touch, and describe. Is it soft? smooth? heavy? wet? As we continued spinning the bottle, the students themselves began the search for interesting materials to hand over to their blindfolded companion. A good, quick materials game, with no winners or losers.
Big exercise
Brick or Clay?
The intention of the workshop was to build a brick, a modular material that the children could later assemble into a collective built project, such as a bench, or a wall. The initial idea was to make a type of concrete terrazzo by mixing waste material with concrete or plaster.
However, I was caught off guard by how young some of these kids were, and we couldn’t risk having anyone put anything toxic in their mouths. We settled for clay, but I struggled to imagine a curriculum where a modular brick project would be exciting for the kids. We decided to let them explore the materiality of the clay, and hint at making a container - so often seen in everyday use in the Sri Lankan kitchen.
We sat along the veranda (porch?) of the children’s center, which meant that the mud-mess could just be hosed off after. Each kid was given around 500g of clay to create with. The week before, we announced that the next class would be clay, and that if you want to take part in it, please bring a jam jar, or any glass bottle we can use to knead clay with. Word must have spread, because we were back up in numbers to nearly 30. Obviously everyone was splattered with mud and they had a lot of fun. Shayari taught them some pottery techniques that they attempted to put to use - but its success would only be revealed the following week after the clay had dried.
The importance of semi-outdoor space for a children’s center - it’s a great space for larger, longer projects as well.
Not everyone made pots, this student used up all her clay to make a crown, a grapevine, and some other ornamentals.
Clearly exploring materials through touch!
Small Dilemmas
About an hour after the class, a parent arrived with two children - his relative was coming to the art class, and he asked if these kids can join the class. I suspected that perhaps they were only interested in the clay class, and I was interested in having consistency of students. They hadn’t brought any of the material that the other kids brought, and they were also an hour late. Allowing them in today would set a bad example to the others, I thought. I advised the father to bring his kids for the next class, on time, with the list of materials I handed to him on a sheet of paper. Is that too much to ask?*
Sadly, these kids did not turn up for the following class. Is there a way I could have handled this situation better?
* Here, on Why I ask children to bring materials to class.
What I wish I could change
This class is, from the outset, based on architectural teaching methods, involving making and project based learning. So as much as everyone enjoyed todays session, I doubted that I had fully achieved the workshop’s intention as well with this project.
I want to focus on trying to figure out a way for the kids to create a modular, inside out geometry that could become part of a greater discussion on how we live. I also hope it would evolve to become a larger, collective project.
Soon, soon.