A new outreach partnership with Cityview Community School in Minneapolis began in early May 2022 and continued through early June 2022. Teaching artists Persis Wade, Elizabeth Coleman, and Jennica Kruse provided weekly classes for elementary school-aged youth during an in-school and an after-school residency in collaboration with Cityview staff and volunteers. Each week, students got the opportunity to make a clay project. The teaching artists demonstrated handbuilding construction techniques and proper application of colorful engobes. At the end of the residency, each student completed two to three projects.
Projects from Cityview Community School residency
According to Rosalind Bakion, full service community schools coordinator at Cityview, the 5th graders said that NCC’s workshops “made their school year.” She also remarked that during the clay workshops staff didn’t experience the usual number of behavioral calls they normally do. “Youth got to use their hands and focus. NCC facilitators were calming, encouraging, and reassuring when interacting with the kids. They encouraged their creativity.”
Through these positive experiences with a high-quality arts programming, students are offered a deeper understanding of materials and hand-made objects. NCC’s ClayToGo program brings a specialized, hands-on clay experience to every school and organization with which we partner.
If you have a school or organization that is interested in working with clay, touring NCC’s facilities, or seeing a clay demonstration, please contact Alison Beech, Education and Outreach Coordinator, at 612.339.8007 x309 or alisonbeech@northernclaycenter.org.
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