Silver Bracelet

Loudoun students make ceramic bowls to help feed the hungry

10.01.10

Cassidy Epling slipped off a silver-wired ring. Stephanie Littenberg pushed aside an embroidered bracelet. It was the day for ninth-grade students at Harmony Intermediate School in Hamilton to join artists in making dozens of ceramic bowls for the school's Empty Bowl project, which last year raised $1,640 for the Western Loudoun Food Pantry.

As they did last year, local pottery artists came to help, setting up their clay wheels in the center of the classroom, across from the teacher's desk.

Potter Geoff DeMark, a teacher at Blue Ridge Middle School, pulled out a 25-pound block of clay, sat at the wheel, rolled up his sleeves and began slapping and mashing it. David Norton, a Round Hill artist who makes pottery for a living, wedged his clay into a cone and then a cup before widening it out into bowls with square and triangular patterns.

"You have to make a thousand lousy pots before you make the first bad one," Norton said.

So far in Art I, instructor Lynda Seebeck has taught the elementary principles of design and the arts of different cultures. Students have read legends, folk tales and other stories about art.

Source: Washington Post