This past Thursday, students from instructor Terry Johnson’s ART 497 class at Penn State Altoona sold tiles that faculty, staff and students could glaze and paint, with proceeds benefiting the Central Pennsylvania Humane Society.
The painted and glazed tiles will be fired in an outdoor Raku kiln, which is fueled by a portable propane tank. A $10 donation was asked before a person chose from a variety of beautiful designs on tiles to decorate.
Modern raku is a method of firing pottery, loosely based on a sixteenth century Japanese technique. The Japanese would fire tea bowls in a small, wood-fired kiln and then remove the bowls from the kiln with tongs while still hot and rapidly cool them. The thermal shock would crackle the low temperature lead glaze.
American raku is rapidly fired, removed from the kiln while hot, and usually smoked afterwards. A still red-hot piece is placed in a container or pit with combustible materials and covered. Since the oxygen supply to the resulting fire is cut off, the piece receives a very heaving smoking or ‘post-firing reduction.’ Many interesting glaze and surface effects can be obtained by using this method. Learning to fire raku well is an exercise in patience, control, timing and observation.
Johnson’s ART 497 class at Penn State Altoona participated in raku firing with tiles. They fired the tiles at 1800 degrees really quickly, as soon as the tiles were red hot they turned the kiln off, took the tiles out and waved them in the air, then threw them in a barrel that caught fire, then closed it down with sawdust to shut the air off from the fire.
When the fire is starved of air, it starts to look for oxygen and where it finds it is inside the clay body, and it draws the oxygen out and leaves the carbon behind, which will give a blackened and shiny surface. At the same time, it also causes the glazes to go iridescent and look like dragon fly wings.
The outcome is very beautiful, surprising and exciting because a person can create something, glaze it, get it out of the kiln within an hour and see what it looks like.
Johnson made the assignment to create a fund-raising item for some kind of charity, by which the class called local charities and the first people who called them back instantly was the Central Pennsylvania Humane Society.
“We’re extremely pleased that this group of students has selected the Humane Society to benefit from their project, and we’re grateful to them for their generosity and community spirit,” said Executive Director of the Central PA Humane Society Dave Hopkins.
Originally, the class set out to develop tiles and sell them, but since it would be difficult to make a large quantity of tiles, they instead decided to invite people to come and paint their own ceramics, and the class will produce blank tiles.
“That takes a whole lot less time for us and people have the joy of doing it themselves, and it gets people together in a community kind of way who are interested in animals,” said Johnson.
For the people who got involved with the project, students of the class and those who donated to paint a tile, showed plenty of interest and enthusiasm. The class had refreshments for the people who participated and after they painted their tile, the students fired them and were said to be available for pick up on November 25.
The goal for the ART 497 class is to raise $1,000 for the Central PA Humane Society. It had about 120 tiles that it hoped to sell at $10 a piece. The project has been ongoing all semester, along with other projects related to Johnson’s class.
“I think they’ve had a good time doing this and some of the students designed a separate project to benefit another charitable organization,” Johnson noted. “One student designed a project to benefit public access television, and two other students did projects to benefit their churches for fund-raisers.”
Sara Hoy, an Art 497 student, enjoyed the project because she was able to see the process of how to make tiles, and then figure out how to donate them to a charitable cause. Hoy was able to make tiles and sell them to benefit the Bald Eagle Valley Community Church in Wingate. In fact, her church gave her a scholarship for being involved in the Arts in college because of her efforts to raise money for her church.
“That was very unbelievable and I was shocked because I went to my church and said I was making these tiles and everybody was really interested,” said Hoy. “We had a speaker that Sunday who came up to me and said that he would like to give me a scholarship for that because he saw what I was doing and donating my time to do this and involving my class to give money to the church.”
Hoy’s church is building a new church, so any amount of money is appreciated. She added, “I think this is a good thing. I wasn’t even suppose to be in this class, but Terry got me in it and I’m so glad that she did. I gained a scholarship because of her class and I’ve learned a lot.”
Johnson said, “Students always love it and I tell them every semester it’s better than sex, and they don’t believe me until we pull the first thing out of the kiln, and then they all come in to see what else they can raku.”
“They like it and we were lucky to be able to do it in the fall, we usually do it in the summer, but our Division Head, Ken Womack, authorized us to get a propane tank and provided refreshments for the event,” added Johnson.
Johnson, who is spending her last semester as an Art professor at Penn State Altoona Campus, thanked all of her students for their contributions of hard work, volunteering to stay late, and for their commitment to the project. She hopes that the project will continue in the future for students to enjoy.
She added, “Obviously, I couldn’t do it by myself. I have to thank my students for just conceiving the project and doing something for the animals.”
Blair County is no different than anywhere else in terms of animals. Thousands and thousands of unwanted animals are homeless and have to be euthanized every year, so the support, care, spading and neutering of animals is everybody’s responsibility.
Johnson’s ART 497 class has shown another way we can contribute to the protection and safety of our animals.
