ES Clay Exploration

Clay has been a year-long exploration in the Experiential School of Tampa Bay. Clay is a natural element, a mineral substance formed as a result of volcanic activity. Clays differ in structure and composition depending on the source and worldly location. Clay as an expressive medium is so expansive that a year is not enough time to explore it. The medium is offered so the young Chargers may explore it together and learn through the process of curious experimentation. 

“I am always excited to see the differences in what the kids do with the clay,” shared Ms. Trayer, the Experiential School Art Studio teacher. 

This year’s clay exploration started by simply presenting a piece of clay with no prompts, rules or expectations. Conversely, an investigation of the seven stages of clay was more complicated. ES students have inspected dry clay, slip (clay glue), plastic clay, leather hard clay, bone dry clay, bisqueware and glazeware. Sometimes it was intentional to change the stage of the clay, and sometimes the bone dry clay seemed more interesting to crush into a fine powder and then wet with water. Each stage spoke directly to the curiosity of a handful of different students. 

If the children showed interest in any particular part of studio class, teachers would try to relate it to clay. For example when students became interested in a bicycle in the exploratorium, it led to many discussions about wheels. Ms. Trayer focused on how everyone could make wheels out of clay. “I thought that if we could build wheels out of clay that would spark curiosity in both the shape of wheels and the dynamics of clay. So we built wheels from wet plastic clay and we tested the wheels on ramps,” she explains.

Wheels were mostly rounded shapes, while a few were square. Some chose to add a hole all the way through for axles and some chose to chisel lines into the wheel for the impression of spokes. Some wheels were thin and some were thick. Wheels were balls of clay, small cylinders and fist size cylinders. The wheels dried for a day to afford the opportunity of testing a bone dry clay wheel or a wet clay wheel on a test track. The wet wheels were popular with some and the dry wheels were a hit with other students.

Unrestricted time with clay provided the students with many therapeutic, multi sensory, and fine motor opportunities. 

“Clay is a wonderful expressive outlet for emotion and unforeseen emotional outbursts,” Trayer shares. “When emotions are deregulated it is hard to verbalize wants and needs, and clay can become a healer. Working with the clay becomes a positive, safe way to release and express emotions. It becomes a calming agent with the opportunity to turn creative. I’ve seen with my own eyes situations where clay has calmed a student with heightened emotions in seconds, when nothing else would.” 

Alpha and JK students were involved in the process of turning a slab of clay into an original, finished, glazed piece of art. Ms. Trayer provided printouts from Bruno Munari’s Variations on the Theme of the Human Face. Students used designs placed over clay as a guide to stipple a face with a toothpick or a skewer. The pieces dried and were then taken to the Upper School to be fired in the kiln. Upper School art teacher, Casey McDonough, hosted each ES class so they could see the kiln and each student could glaze a tile.