Season 1 Episode 2

The Teapot Project at Senior High

November 2011

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See the followup Episode (4) of Brad Fautsch's class projects.

Gary Olsen

Form must follow function in this ceramics lesson. Otherwise the creative sky is the limit.

his is our first visit to Senior High and Brad Fautsch's art class and we will be coming back two more times to see student's progress on their 3D art project, a teapot which is any vessle that can hold, transport and pour water. The lesson's objectives are to design an object that also incorporates texture and color. Ceramic clay is the medium, and this is an advanced class. This means these art students have had at least one previous classes in the ceramic arts.

What's SPLASH!?

Splash! is a new cable series on Mediacom Channel 16 (97-6 on the digital tier). Designed to take you into classrooms and studios to observe the creative process, this series is trying to show citizens how art classes teach students important communication skills while strengthening their abilities to problem solve.

For example, did you know that musicians make the best computer programmers? That's because musicians are trained to see patterns in a musical score and interpret those patterns. Visual storytelling is an absolute essential communication skill in film and television which is all part of the multimedia world of expression we now experience not just in entertainment but essential forms of business communication. And it is those students that master visual communication in one form or another that are most successful in business and in life.

Each episode starts with a quote about the arts and the first episode featured: "Without art, school would be just letters, numbers and the lingering smell of formaldehyde."

If you're an art teacher, be ready to make a contribution to this enterprise. We'll be counting on you. --Gary Olsen, Creator of Splash!

 

 
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Organic designs like this one disregards the necessity of a lid. Still, function follows the form in this pot. It can hold and pour liquid.
This Frankensteinian teapot design is evocative of the "steam punk" design style popularized by graphic novels and popular films.
No predictable curves or straight lines in this design. Even the spout appears to be upside down.
This artist has sculpted a head shape which is comprised of thin labs of clay to enable a hollow form. Stylized features will be sculpted into the shape and the top carefully carved out to form a lid.

 

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