Ceramics is a class where students bring their creative ideas to life through the art of building and sculpting with clay. Ceramics 1 and 2 are both nine-week-long elective classes that involve being creative and getting a little messy. This class is open to any student who has taken Art 1. Ceramics 1 is about hand building, a pottery-making technique that involves creating forms without a pottery wheel, using the hands, fingers, and simple tools, while Ceramics 2 introduces wheel throwing, the process of forming clay into shapes on a potter’s wheel. Some projects made this year consist of vases, jewelry holders, a landscape project, and some miniature “punny” characters.

Projects typically take two to three weeks to make. This process includes planning, research, kneading clay to remove air bubbles, building the project, and letting it dry for about seven days. This process also includes the teacher, Erin James, firing and glazing the projects once students are finished.

Student Joannah Pagonis shared that she joined the class because “it’s fun and you get to make things out of clay”.

Pagonis says her favorite part of the class are all the “cool” interactions she has with her classmates and teacher. Another student, Ava Tyler, said that she loves to work with her other classmates and getting to “bounce off their ideas”. There are many unique ideas they get the hear and create.

Both students urge other HHS students to join the class for many reasons, one being the positive environment it provides. Ceramics is open to anyone, and students shouldn’t be anxious about their artistic skills, Pagonis even says, “If you can’t draw it you can definitely make it out of clay”.