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Photo by Sanne Godfrey/The Advocate
Ceramics Club President Daniel Bennett places wood into the kiln on the MHCC campus.
Ceramics sale in time for gifting
Pre-Christmas sale to help ceramics club and MHCC's charity Barney's Pantry
The Advocate
The 25th annual ceramics Christmas sale will be held Dec. 1 and 2 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Dec. 1 and 2.
“This gives students an opportunity to sell their work and see how involved they have to be,” said Ceramics Club president Daniel Bennett.
All students, staff and alumni are invited to participate in the event.
Ceramics instructor Stephen Mickey said, “It is the major fundraiser the students do to support their club activities. This year we are trying to raise money to help them go to a conference in Philadelphia.”
Mickey said the students will get 75 percent, the club will receive 20 percent and 5 percent will go to the Visual Arts Gallery.
Bennett said 5 percent of the club proceeds will go to Barney’s Pantry.
Mickey said, “I think in the last three years we have given close to $2,000” to charitable organizations such as Barney’s Pantry.
The rest of the proceeds will help to subsidize workshops, according to Bennett.
The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts 2010 annual conference in Philadelphia will be held March 21 until April 3 and, according to ceramics club member Ben Morrison, the nation’s best potters will be there. The ceramics students who will go to the conference will have to come up with half the funds, according to Morrison.
Morrison said there will also be equipment manufacturers and representatives from educational institutions and it will expose the local potters community.
Another student sale will be held in the spring with proceeds going to charity and the ceramics club as well.
A potter from Hokkaido, Japan, will be visiting campus from April 17 to May 3, according to Mickey.
“Mr. Kosai fires a Shigaraki style wood kiln and will share his pottery-making techniques and his firing techniques with the pottery and sculpture students. There will be a show of the work the students and Mr. Kosai fire in our Nanagama kiln,” said Mickey.
By the end of the week, the students will be firing with him, according to Morrison.
MHCC has a reduction gas fire kiln, wood fire kiln and a salt fire kiln, but according to Bennett, the wood fire kiln has a good impact on the planet.
“We use it as much as we can,” said Bennett. “It feels green to a lot of people.”
The wood used to fire the kiln comes from trees that blew over during last year’s windstorm.
The high fire kiln releases calcium, potassium and other minerals that get trapped inside the clay and gives the pottery different colors.
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