Hello!
My name is Nina Berinstein and my thesis project is about how young people interact with clay. As a ceramic artist myself, I am quite familiar with the unique qualities of this material; it is flexible, impressionable, three-dimensional, and tactile. I could (and sometimes do!) spend hours in my studio immersed in the process of shaping the clay. Oftentimes the forms that I make are not planned, and instead emerge from an unspoken conversation with the medium. Rather than words, this dialogue employs tactile and visual languages. Many other ceramic artists I know work in a similar way, driven by the process rather than the product.
As an art teacher in elementary school settings, I see my students’ faces light up when we start our clay unit. They dive right in and begin to shape the clay intuitively, excited by the unique tactile experience. Year after year, I can’t help but notice that they, too, seem overwhelmingly motivated by the process versus the product. This brings me to my research question:
How do young people engage with clay?
- How do they touch?
- Where do they look?
- How do they talk?
I want to know what my students’ experience of the medium is, and if they too are equally hungry for the process versus the product like so many contemporary ceramic artists. This information is essential in creating comprehensive clay curricula.
In order to begin to answer this question, I have been doing teacher action research in my elementary classrooms during the clay unit. Photographs and audio recordings are taken during class to capture students’ hands, eyes, and conversations during making. This data will then be analyzed for patterns. Paired with this research, I am also creating an artwork that speaks to my personal engagement with clay. While I look through data describing how my students are touching, looking at and talking about clay, I became interested in how I do these things in my own studio practice. I have been recording my hands during sessions in the studio, and will watch the footage at a later time to find a handful of poignant hand gestures that I was not aware of before. By closely looking at and drawing these gestures from the still images, I hope to hone my awareness of how I myself engage with the material. Stay tuned!
