Ch Ch Ch...Chia!

"Your life is like a piece of clay, don't let anyone else mold it for you."

-Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher (6th Century)

New Buffalo High School students are progressing in their journey as young ceramic artists with exposure to various handbuilding and pottery techniques. While it very satisfying to teach slab-built mugs and coiled bowls, I find fresh excitement in demonstrating a method that my students may not have done before to emphasize the multiple possibilities that they can tap into when creating their own ceramic works of art.

The 2nd Trimester Ceramics Unit for my high school students introduced figurative sculpting using a clay modeling and hollowing-out technique that I studied during my summer professional development offered by the Michigan Art Education Association at the Adrian Center of the Arts. (Sculpting from Life)

My students were given the artistic challenge to come up with a concept of their choice to build as a functional Chia Pet or figurative sculpture for this part of the unit.

From a lump of clay, my students pinched and pressed the clay into 3D forms to hold the weight for additional sections while developing the structure of their sculptures. After the main details were intact, students sliced their sculptures in half to hollow out the interior.

Piggy in the hollowing-out process

Why do Clay Sculptures need to be Hollowed-Out?

1. Explosions: Clay bodies that are thicker than your thumb have trapped water and air inside which heat up during a kiln firing and expand inside the piece causing the clay to explode.

2. Moisture: A solid sculpture may not be totally dry in the center because parts of the piece will dry at different speeds causing cracks and explosions. The wait time for firing a damp piece could take weeks or even months depending on the size and thickness until it is completely bone dry if it is not hollowed out before firing.

3. Weight: You don't want your sculpture to be too heavy so that it is easy to handle when finished. A lighter piece also saves energy because it doesn't have to fire in the kiln as long.

As students drafted ideas for their clay sculptures, they had to decide if they were going to create a functional Chia Pet or a figurative sculpture. This would be a factor in their design if the opening needed to be on the top for watering their chia plants or on the bottom to be concealed when on display.

I created the bust of Groot as an example of this process:

It was exciting to help my students bring their ideas to life during the clay construction phase of this unit as they experimented with 3D forms, hollowed out their structures to reconnect back together, and finally demonstrating quality craftsmanship in the last stages of their figurative sculptures.

Penguin, Garden Gnome, and Baby Yoda

Charging Bull

Minecraft characters: Enderman and Fox Boi

Globe Lantern

Sea Turtle

Students who chose to create a Chia Pet will receive a tiny bag of chia seeds with growing instructions after the pieces are bisque fired. The Chia Pet sculptures will not be glazed so that water can seem through the terracotta clay to grow the plants. The figurative sculptures can either be glazed, painted, or left as bisqueware pieces.

I'm excited to see the final ceramic pieces completed as we wrap up the trimester these last couple of weeks. I'm proud of my students for pushing the boundaries of what is possible with this sculpting technique.