Doug Baulos’s work inspired me to think about idioms or phrases that use the word hand. I felt this might be a meaningful opportunity for students to combine word play with clay. I found a list on the internet by searching for “hand, phrases and idioms.” I put this information into a handout (of course), along with a photo and link to Baulos’s work. I told students they could either use some of the phrases I listed or brainstorm others they would like to use.
With just a couple of weeks left before my seventh-grade students left for summer break, I found myself on the internet searching for new slab ideas. The reason I chose slabs was because the drying time is usually a little faster, and I knew I wanted to fire it in less than a week. I also wanted to see if students could remember what they’d learned earlier in the year about wedging clay and hand-rolling an even slab.
Inspiration from Doug Baulos
Doug Baulos is the assistant professor of drawing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and curriculum director. I found his work at Studio by the Tracks, an art center that provides free studio space to adult artists on the autism spectrum and free art classes to youth in residential treatment for emotional trauma. One of his pieces, White Wreath (Oracion), is an installation of porcelain hands surrounding a wreath made of dictionary pages and found objects. Each hand is drenched in meaning and several of the hands feature birds.
Hand-Out: The Idioms and Phrases
Baulos’s work inspired me to think about idioms or phrases that use the word hand. I felt this might be a meaningful opportunity for students to combine wordplay with clay. I found a list on the internet by searching for “hand, phrases and idioms.” I put this information into a handout (of course), along with a photo and link to Baulos’s work. I told students they could either use some of the phrases I listed or brainstorm others they would like to use. They were instructed to design ideas in their sketchbooks before starting their work in clay.
Hands On: The Process
After wedging the clay and rolling the slab (no thinner than a pencil), students placed their nondominant hand on the slab with their fingers closed and traced around it with a pencil. The fingers remained closed to help prevent breakage and to reflect the style of the Baulos installation. After tracing their hands, students used a needle tool to cut around it.
Students could texturize the slab with items such as rubber stamps, shells, hardware, and metal jewelry, or by simply carving it. They were also instructed to use scoring and slipping to add attachments. When the slab hand was complete, students placed their creations on pieces of raw canvas fabric to dry. I covered these with another piece of canvas for the first day to slow down the drying process and prevent curling.
After three days of drying, I fired the hands in the kiln using stilts. All sides of the bisque hand were covered with three coats of glaze except for the underside, which had only one coat of glaze.
Hands Down:
The Completion and Reflection
The hands were completed in less than a week, and students were able to take them home for summer break. As I looked at the finished products, I thought about how the variety of themes reflected the diversity of my creative students. When I repeat this lesson, I plan to display the pieces as a collaborative installation. This was “hands-down” the quickest and most effective clay project I’ve ever tried—perfect for those days when the “hands of time” are ticking away!
Melody Weintraub, TAEA president-elect, is a freelance artist and retired art teacher. MelodyWeintraub@gmail.com, MelodyWeintraub.com
National Standard:
Connecting: Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context.
Resource:
Doug Baulos
Art teachers encourage students to explore and express empathy. High-school students construct narrative photographs that express an emotional mood, middle-school students design personal map compositions inspired by a meaningful place, elementary students share an important message about human rights through collage, young students create vibrant canvas paintings inspired by artist Jeff Hanson, and more.
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