Senior invests hours into project for ceramics class

The high school is home to hundreds of talented student artists and offers all sorts of creative elective classes, from drawing to jewelry to photography. Among these art classes is Ceramics I, taught by Emily Olson. In Ceramics I, students learn how to create things like mugs and bowls, but it is the slab project that allows them to get creative, using paper inner structures and slabs of clay to create a sculpture of anything they can dream up. Senior Bailey Miller saw this as an opportunity to test her limits.

The first step in creating her sculpture was coming up with an idea and sketching it out. After almost a week of Googling, sketching and brainstorming, Miller decided she wanted her sculpture to be a person. 

“The idea of sculpting a bust stuck out to me because I’m fairly familiar with human anatomy, and I just adore sculptures of people,” she said. “I figured, I can draw a face. How difficult can it be to sculpt one?” 

Miller said that she was quickly proven wrong. The next part of the process was working on the paper structure to be the base. At first, she began with a base of newspaper and tape, wrapped the whole thing in plastic and attempted to add clay. However, the structure was not secure, and frustration was setting in.

“I decided that I hated how it was going, and a week or so into the project, I tore the whole thing apart,” she said.

Finally, she started again, and this time she used thicker pieces of printer paper to create a secure structure with flat surfaces and angles. After completing this process, she was able to begin sculpting.

Miller’s sculpture went through many phases. First she decided that the bust would be female, then sketched where the features would go on the clay. Next, she began adding details like the ears, nose, mouth and brows. 

“The eyes threw me for a loop,” she said, “but ‘persevere and you shall succeed.’”

After all this was done, she used a hole in the back of the head to carefully remove the paper and plastic from inside.

Over the next few weeks, Miller dedicated nearly 50 hours to her project, working after school, during lunch and even coming to the school when no other students were there to work during a professional development day. The result was a bust sculpture of a young woman with more meaning than Miller had even intended it to have when she began her project. 

“The hours we spent staring at each other created a sort of solemn feeling over time, and although I had no intention of giving her a feeling, she seems to instill a reflective tone in her observer,” she said. “I like that her meaning is not finite, though.”

Once fired in the kiln, the final part of Miller’s project will be to bring the bust to life using paint or glaze. She said that she is incredibly proud of the work she’s put into this project and the beautiful result it has yielded, and she is excited to explore more types of pottery and sculpting with the rest of the semester’s time.

“I’d also like to give her a name in the future,” Miller said. “Suggestions are welcome.”