Now, that challenge is not in the behavior of the students (though generally, the kids who sign up for ceramics are not at all interested in art, and are more interested in obtaining an honors diploma.  And it goes without saying that teaching is more fun when the students are interested.)  My kids are great.  I am completely spoiled, and this high school has ruined me for all other high schools I’m sure.

The challenge is in that this is a brand new skill for these kids.  And these kids belong to a generation of efficiency and having things done for you.  And most importantly, I myself only learned this brand new skill a few days before I taught them.

Yeah.  I learned at the end of one week, and began teaching the following Monday.  Throughout this whole experience I have been keeping just one step ahead of the students.  And they have No.  Idea.  Whatsoever.

In fact, they’ll often say things like “Well it’s easy for you, you spent all of college doing this!” & “Well I’d be that good at it too if I’d been doing it for three years or whatever.”  Ha ha ha.  Please keep my secret.  They can never know… even though I am absolutely dying to tell them.

I’ve spent planning periods and time after school practicing and sometimes would whisper questions to my cooperating teacher so that the kids would not know I didn’t know the answer.  And I did it.  I now feel completely comfortable on the wheel (though I have a lot to learn) and my students have produced some high quality work.  I can spot a student across the room doing something wrong, and instantly know what they need to do to fix it despite having never seen the problem before.

One of my friends is teaching art history right now, and he told me he heard somewhere that you remember 20% of what you learn, and 90% of what you teach (or something like that.)  I remember so much more from my research now, knowing that I will have to present it to students and answer questions about it, than I did while doing actual coursework for my classes (where I just had to get through a paper or exam.)  I imagine that I am going to learn so much more from actually being a teacher than I did while studying to be a teacher, though I know I wouldn’t be able to get through it without that education.

So that’s what I have been spending half of my time doing at school these last few months.  I am so glad that I not only know how to throw pottery on the wheel now, but that I can teach others how to do it successfully.  I also know that I will be able to take on any other medium I am less familiar with and teach it if I am ever given the opportunity (I’m looking at you, jewelry.)

I’ll try and take some pictures of the finished pieces, and maybe even a few of my own =)

One artist whose work I found particularly beautiful was that of Peggy Engsberg Furlin, who does some amazing work with watercolors.

(source)

You should definitely check out more of her work here, and she also has a blog here.  Goooorgeous!

Even though most of the work I saw and loved was WAY out of my price range, there were a few things I managed to go home with =)

I got these earrings, made by Cathy Braunlin who does some very interesting work with polymer clay.  I’ve really never seen anything like it (you should go to her website here and see what else she does-so much more than earrings!) and I was lucky enough to have her explain the process to me.  So intriguing.

I also got these three tiny vases:

Unfortunately, they don’t have a website (that I’m aware of, and none is listed on the business card) but they were made by Schmidt-Marken Designs in Indiana.  They are beautiful and it took me forever to decide which ones to get, I loved them all.  Here is a photo to show the size…

Soo small!  I love them, and plan on putting tiny little flowers in them =)

A few more artists that caught my attention were Scot Schmidt, Amy Huisinga, and City Art Market. There were TONS more and a lot that I loved but who don’t have a website =(  I couldn’t believe it.

Anyway, now I want to go to any and all art fairs in my vicinity, and I’m more inspired than ever to get my act together to start producing enough art to fill a booth and apply for a spot in an art fair.  There are a couple more coming up that I hope I get a chance to go to (including Renegade Craft in Chicago) so hopefully I will be posting about those as well =)

Hope you all had a great weekend!