At ConVal High School, a number of classes have been moved outside, including Mrs. Mitschmyer’s Ceramics class. This means that all supplies and tools, including potter’s wheels, have to be brought out on a hand-pulled utility wagon every morning and brought back in when school is over.
Everyone has taken these new circumstances in stride. “Students have been practicing a variety of hand-building skills in Ceramics under the tents this year,” explained Mitschmyer. “Everything from pinch to coil, and now working with slabs.”
“Over the last two weeks, students have been building vessels for containment. At school, this means they have been building boxes and at home, they are working on hollow forms. Moving forward we are exploring bowl forms and tile making.”
“I’m hopeful that we will be in the studio in the near future and students will begin practicing the potter’s wheel! I just fired the first kiln of the year and hope to show students how to apply glaze for the final firing process soon,” Mitschmyer concluded.
