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Wanted: Volunteers to glaze pottery – a lot of pottery
By Tony Ends
Editor
BRODHEAD – Starting late this afternoon, 3 to 5 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 2 – and again each Wednesday for two more weeks, four art students need your help.
They’re not struggling with classes or needing tutoring. In fact, their success – not failure, is why they need your assistance.
Nine people – community members, parents, retired teachers, artists – from Green, Rock and Walworth counties, turned out for a throw-a-thon these seniors organized and held Oct. 27 at the high school.
In a single day, they potted more than 130 bowls for the 4th annual Soup Bowl Dinner, which will be held in mid-February.
Now the Brodhead High School art students, who’ve undertaken this activity as their senior project, need help glazing all those bowls.
“No special skills are necessary,” said Barbara Miller, the students’ art teacher. “Volunteers just need to be able to hold a paint brush. The seniors will assign glazes with specific bowls. This is their activity.”
The four seniors are Savanna Lamb, Chey Brady, Tori Foecking, and Paige Sanchez.
If you can’t make the open studio at the high school to help them today, the next two Wednesdays to mark on your calendar are Dec. 9 and 16.
Ceramic glaze is a moisture-resistant layer or coating. Glaze is a glass-like substance that potters fuse to their ceramic vessels through firing. Glaze serves to color, decorate or waterproof the bare pot or bowl.
The marathon of pottery bowl-making in October drew one of the former seniors, Katie Jordan, who started the Soup Bowl Dinner 4 years ago.
This dinner has given the Brodhead High School art department a big boost. The first year, funds that were raised purchased a new kiln. In other years, it has helped the program buy new potter’s wheels, better glazes, other tools and a digital camera.
This school year, the event is set for Feb. 15, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the high school Auditeria. The band concert is the same night at 7 p.m., giving Brodhead its own dinner and musical performance.
The dinner will feature homemade soups, side salad, dessert and a beverage.
Pottery and ceramics has kept gaining in popularity at Brodhead High School, with 35 students signed up this year.
Other volunteers who helped with the throw-a-thon this year were Kristen Bear, Evansville; Rachel Flood Elyafi, Orfordville; Karla Krueger, Whitewater; Pat Troyer, Brodhead; Melody Jones, Beloit, Riley Diffenderfer, Brodhead; Susan Swedlund, Beloit; and Ross Daniels, Brodhead.
Brodhead High School art students Savanna Lamb, Chey Brady, Tori Foecking, and Paige Sanchez, begin today with their instructor Barb Miller holding open studios late each Wednesday afternoon through December. They need volunteers to help glaze as many as 150 bowls for the girls’ senior project in February.
