“Is it a bag of cheese? It looks like a bag of cheese!”

Over the past couple of weeks, friends have been working with clay in the Studio!  Clay is one of my favorite mediums to introduce in the Studio because it’s open-ended and allows for rich conversation and imaginative play.

What do you think this material is?

Kofi: It looks like paper mache.  It’s heavier though.

Maia: Soft and mushy.  Is it frozen?

Abigail: It’s cookie dough because it’s white and it’s cold.

Ronan: I think it’s clay.  Hey, I didn’t know it would be wet.

Selwyn: It’s a potato because it makes the table dirty and it’s the color of a potato.  It’s heavy to me but I’m strong, I’m so strong.  I can pick up the potato.

William: Is that slime?

Adrian: I thought clay was brown.

Andres: Is it marshmallows?

Marley: Is it a bag of cheese?  It looks like a bag of cheese.

Alberto: If it’s clay then bricks are made from it.

Christian: It’s like a stone block.

Luke: When it dries, it’ll be hard like my skull.

Mae: Is it claydough?  Clay… like ballet.

Florentina: Hey, that feels interesting.  Is it wet paper that you put in a bag?

Once we discovered that the mystery material was clay, I introduced some different types of tools that would be available to use with the clay.

Daniel: It looks like what you use to flip a pancake.  And this one is a bammer… it bams spiders.

Ryler: That looks like a little fork.  It makes lines like a fork.

Abdoulaye: Cookers use that to make dough flat.

Alberto: Tools can do much more things then hands.

Kofi: That tool looks like a duck beak.  The wire tool makes it flat like a pizza dough.  Or a pillow.  It’s perfect.

Yonathan: That tool scratches like a tiger.

Bennett: I’m using the hammer like my daddy.

Mackenzi: The wire looks like nunchucks.

Mouhammadou: When you cut it with scissors, flatten it up with the hammer to make it feel better.

… and here are some finished sculptures!

Kofi: That’s the thing about art… you have to get messy.  That’s the point.