Empower NYC HS Students with a Ceramic Studio

Creating a ceramic studio for HS art student trauma survivors. In the words of the great ceramic artist and educator: "the answer to all high school problems is clay." (Karen Karnes)

These special students are 16-21 year olds, in a small public school, trying to graduate. They live in precarious conditions; shelters, group homes, foster homes. This is a Title 1 school which means the students are living at or below the national poverty level. This will be their first experience with clay, a medium that is both inviting and scary for its unfamiliarity. It is the earth. It smells like the earth. But how many of our NYC students have ever smelled or handled freshly dug earth? Their hands will touch the cool clay, but it will become warm as they manipulate it. It will develop into coils, slabs, pinch pots, vessels, nameplates, busts. They will feel anxiety and learn to relax. They will develop a calmness and patience they did not know they had. They will find bonds with each other that didn't exist before. Because clay is a slow learning process, and it takes hold of you and gradually you begin to "listen to the clay."

Students will learn about the history of ceramics from the ancient funerary objects of Mycenae and Banpo China, Jomonware in Japan, and tiny cups for collecting mothers' tears in the burial chambers in Oaxaca, Mexico; to the contemporary vessels of the urban activist Roberto Lugo, and the powerful sculptures of Simone Leigh, Sana Musasama, and Rose B. Simpson. Their sketchbooks and drawing pens have already been funded through a DonorsChoose Fund Drive.

Please contribute to this kiln and initial clay purchase so that the ceramics program can get off the ground! Thank you so much! The students thank you! The principal and AP and I thank you.!