LAST WEEK WITH BRAD AND TARA BEGINS

Monday started our last week with Brad and Tara. I can not put into words how excited I am about this workshop and how proud I am of my students who have turned out some absolutely wonderful work. The class started with Brad bringing out one foot square tiles for each of us. Even though this looked like the same clay we had used to do our figurative sculptures it was a different kind. This was brick clay. Brad talked briefly to the students about the clay and what we were going to be doing this last week. He explained that this first tile would be done using the additive process as opposed to the subtractive. Additive means that we were to add clay on top of the tile - not dig down into it which would be subtractive. Both Brad and Tara suggested that we each think about the words that we had chosen the previous week and try to come up with a visual symbol for them both. Some students found this to be very easy and started immediately to draw their sketches directly into the clay tile. Others had to think more about their words perhaps because some of the words did not lend themselves as easily to a symbol as others. Ravon and Erik decided to look up their words in the dictionary to perhaps get an idea that they had not previously thought about. One student asked me to take a photograph of three interlocking hands for her symbol of unity. Once everyone had their ideas either on paper, on their tiles or in their head, they eventually began to start the process of adding clay to build up the surface. We added and added and added more and more clay. During this part of the process we were not particularly interesting in detail or texture but rather the shape and form. Finally after a great class it was time to put away all the tiles for the evening. It was very impressive to see how much we accomplished in this first day!

Larry Hewett