My class at Anderson Ranch wrapped up yesterday afternoon and my students worked almost up till the time of our reception at 3:15 to finish their sculptures.  Some finished early and then many were on a mission to add as many details as possible to their work before the end of class.  I had 13 children enrolled, though 1 had to return home to California 2 days early and didn’t finish his piece.

It was a luxury to have an assistant to help me out in class but certainly necessary for this project.  We did some hand sewing which can be tricky for the younger kids.

What’s always interesting and inspiring to me when teaching children is that some take the project quite literally, while others feel free to break the mold.  Coleman is a local in the area, and though he was rather quiet, I can tell that he’s very gifted in art.  Anderson Ranch does a lot of fund raising and is very generous in providing scholarships for anyone who wants to attend classes at the Ranch.  While there are many wealthy families who send their children to art classes here, many of the local kids are the beneficiaries of scholarships.  I also found out that scholarships are also available to adults and is based on merit as well as financial need.  Tuition for adults can run $1,000/ class + room and board.

Alyssa and Audry both broke the project template and created a creative engineering challenge for me and Gwynnie, my assistant.  Lily made a fantastic sculpture and definitely one of my favorites.  She got off to a rocky start and struggled to sculpt the antlers.  Part of the process of my class is that children have to try to make most of the pieces themselves with minimal assistance from me.  I always remind them that there is no wrong way to create.  In the end, Lily did an awesome job and may have surprised herself at how well her sculpture turned out.

Jacob was another student who obsessed over sculpting his clay pieces.  He wanted Gwynnie and myself to do it for him and kept starting and restarting.  Jacob was also my student who always wanted to know why we were doing something and why it had to be a certain way.  I think he needed to see it in advance though I kept telling him to trust me.  His chicken turned out awesome – and reminds me of one of those rubber chickens which was of course his goal all along.

Both Justine and Hannah were off to a running start from day one.  They knew exactly what they wanted to make and made it happen with minimal help. Despite missing a day of class, Emily made it happen in the end.  I love how whimsical her sculpture is.  All of them have a wood and wire armature inside making the arms, legs and tails (if added) movable.

That was one of my creative challenges for this class – making the sculptures movable.  Ceramics is not a pliable medium so I had to play around a bit to make these work.  I am going to tweak my model to see if it can be constructed a little bit better when I get home.

Overall, the parent’s and student’s loved their projects.  Many of the children gave me hugs when leaving and more than one said she didn’t want it to end.  That made me feel really good.  Sarabeth Berk, the children’s education coordinator for Anderson Ranch told me they had never done anything like this here before and even asked if I might be willing to come back sometime in the future.  Heck yes!

We drive home to Denver today back to the inferno.  From the news, I hear that we’ve broken some records with the most consecutive days over 90 and we haven’t really had rain since May.  It’s crispy and definitely the dog days of summer.

Meanwhile, I’m going to give myself a day or 2 off when we return.  Then it’s back to the studio for me!

Have a great weekend everyone,

~Cynthia

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