Communicating with Clay - Brief Article

Arts & Activities, Dec, 2000 by Karen Skophammer

We were learning the sign language alphabet in my Advisory/Advisee class at school, using A Word In The Hand (Garlic Press, 1995), by Jane Kitterman and S. Harold Collins a teaching guide. To reinforce this lesson, I devised a "clay experience" based on sign language.

Since these particular students had previously worked with clay forming pinch pots, they already knew some of the clay basics. We got got started by by working with the clay. How does it feel? How does it smell?

I demonstrated how to use a rolling pin to roll out slabs clay. I made sure the kids knew that a dry pin was necessary to keep the clay from sticking to it. (I roll the clay on boards that have burlap backing. The clay easily comes off of the burlap side of the board.) I also emphasized rolling the clay to a consistently even thickness. When they began the actual clayrolling process, the students readily made the connection between rolling clay and rolling cookie dough.

When the clay was flat and even each student placed his or her hand on their slab of clay and traced around it with a wooden stylus. Removing their hands from the clay's surface, the students used plastic knife to cut through the clay. The hand-shaped clay slab was then lifted from the masonite board and placed on a clay drying wheel.

Next, each student picked a letter of the sign language alphabet into which they then fashioned their clay hands. The fingers were bent and shaped into the appropriate hand configuration for that letter of the alphabet.

We examined our hands more carefully to see where all the lines, finger nails, joints, etc. were. Then after close observation, the lines were etched into the clay hand with a pointed wooden stylus to make the hand more realistic.

While we were waiting for these to air dry, I used the time to have the students research the uses of clay slabs in cuneiform writing and pictographic writing. How did these forms vary from our "hand slabs" and the message each clay hand was telling? We agreed that each form was a way of communicating or "speaking."

After the initial firing, the students glazed the clay hands. Most of the students wanted to use "funky" colors so that each hand would be more individualized. I loved this idea because every marking and line on a hand is already unique and individual. So, the glaze techniques made each hand even more individualized and easy to distinguish from the other clay letter hands.

This clay unit was successful in many ways. It allowed us to explore the slab method of working with clay. It was a great way to reinforce our sign language skills-especially the finger spelling we had learned.

This unit could be taken much farther by having the students create whole phrases in sign language slab hands. Or, they could pick an area like "color" and make symbols representing various colors.

Karen Skophammer teaches art for the Manson Northwest Webster Schools in Barnum, Iowa.

OBJECTIVES

Students will ...

* realize finger spelling is basic to all sign language.

* learn to form letters and words through sign language.

* be able to successfully roll a slab of clay.

* describe, analyze and interpret clay hand signs, as well as finger signs.

* manipulate the clay with tools such as a roller and stylus.

* define basic clay terms such as roil, slab, wedge, air pockets, scoring, etc.

* define basic sign language terms such as finger signing.

* learn how different forms of writing and communication differ throughout the years and in different cultures.

* be able to finger sign the entire alphabet.