Making Events

The St.Kate's Empty Bowls Project has a rich history of both “making events” and “soup socials” aimed at community engagement and raising money towards helping with food insecurity. Making events are events where community members get together (often those with little to no clay experience) and make bowls out of clay to donate to the St. Kate's soup socials. These soup socials are events where the community gathers to choose a bowl made by others, make a donation and has a meal together. All proceeds from this event go to Open Arms of Minnesota, a non-profit working to end food insecurity for chronically ill individuals and St. Kate's Food Access Hub. Making events are facilitated by the St. Kate's ceramics studio. The Ceramics professor Monica Rudquist is the point person for all things Empty Bowls. 

Making events start with an interest, either an outside group will come to us and ask to be involved, or we ( Monica, students in her class, clay club…) will reach out to a group we think might enjoy the experience. Once initial contact has been made, dates and times will be discussed and general logistics will come into play. Though these events are usually held in the St. Kate's ceramics studio, they have been held both in other buildings on campus and completely off-site. Bowl making events have been held at Open Arms for their corporate volunteers, Lunds Byerly's and Tom's shoes. Bowl making as well as two Soup Socials have been held at the American Swedish Institute.

The next step after all the dates and logistics are worked out is to get ready for the event. Prior to the event students (often part of one of Monica's classes or clay club) will set up for the event. If on campus, they will set out all the materials, prep the clay and get everything ready for the event. This prep work can happen the day of or  a few days before. If outside of the studio the same steps are taken only instead of being set out the materials are packed up for transport. 

The general setting up of an Empty bowls making event requires a series of steps are taken, first one must choose the method being used to create the bowl. There are several that can be chosen from slab built to wheel thrown. St. Kates has found that slab building with the use of slump molds to be the easiest method to facilitate the creativity of the people in the event. This means that the rolled out slab of clay is placed on top of a plaster mold of the shape of the inside of a bowl. The slab is then gently molded to fit the shape and texture techniques and colored slips are used to decorate it.

To facilitate this the students will pre- roll the required number of slabs before the event, set out texture tools: fettling knives, stamps, little bowls of water or slip, slump molds, paper towels, underglaze, brushes and any other tools deemed necessary. They also will often set up a television set in order to present both the history of the St. Kate's empty bowls project and our chosen non-profit.  It is also explained how these bowls they are making will be donated to the empty bowls soup social and are not for them to keep when finished. Once done with this short presentation they will demonstrate how to make the bowls and give options on how to decorate them. Then it is free creating time for the community members with the students available to help supervise. 

Once done, the bowls are moved to a cart to dry and the making group will leave. There is however an option to come back and finish a bowl if it is not done to the creator's satisfaction. Also we offer glazing events afterwards if the community members are interested in coming back and finishing their bowls once they have been fired once. 

Once the bowls are finished they are packed up and stored until the next St. Kate's soup social where they will be offered for a donation to attendees. These events include the bowls made at all of the making events throughout the year. There are usually somewhere around 8- 16 making events hosted each year. Proceeds from this event go towards Open Arms of Minnesota and the Food Access Hub.

Events and Accessibility

Making events are certainly the most powerful form of engagement that the St. Kate’s Empty Bowls Project offers. They provide a way for community members to engage with the project on a completely different level. For many community members, this is their first introduction to SKEBP, and, in most cases, their first connection to Open Arms of Minnesota.

I had the opportunity to speak with President Rebecca Roloff about her involvement with making events in the past, and she discussed the powerful connection made between students, faculty, and their work in the short time that they spend at making/glazing events. Pres. Roloff said, “There’s something so powerful about seeing people who wouldn’t normally interact with each other come together because they have common values.” This is especially true through making events facilitated through campus-wide volunteer projects, such as the Feast of St. Joseph, or Citizen Katie. 

Making events make the mission of Open Arms of Minnesota accessible to community members, who otherwise would have likely never heard of the nonprofit. It gives them a personal connection to the nonprofit, and also allows them to share Open Arms’ mission with loved ones who may benefit from their services. President Roloff mentioned that volunteers often like to feel as though they are doing something tangible, and I think that making events are the perfect way to facilitate that. SKEBP currently hosts multiple making/glazing events per semester, in contrast to one social. Though the Social is incredibly crucial for fundraising, the wide variety of making/glazing events can seem more accessible to the public. People who attend these events often feel more inclined to return to the semester’s Social, as they now have a personal connection to the project itself. At the Socials, bowls are offered in exchange for a monetary donation. Community members will often seek out the bowl of a loved one, or their own bowl, and feel more inclined to donate, since the bowl now has sentimental value. Additionally, the physical reminder of attending a making event is more impactful than seeing an advertisement for the social (though, both are arguably impactful!). 

Empty Bowls and St. Kate’s CORE: The St. Kate’s Mission Combined

Although SKEBP hosts multiple public making/glazing events, the majority of making events are requested by professors of St. Kates’ core class, The Reflective Woman (or, TRW). As described by the university, “The Reflective Woman is a discussion-based course intended to develop knowledge, values and skills in critical and creative inquiry, effective communication and an understanding of diversity. As the title implies, The Reflective Woman uses a variety of approaches uniquely responsive to learning styles of women. In its three units, the course explores identity development within social contexts, different approaches to truth and evidence, and ways to work toward community and justice.” Because of Open Arms’ mission of community work & justice, and SKEB’s creative making events, many TRW professors see a powerful connection between SKEB and TRW. Oftentimes, they will set aside a class period for their students to participate in a classroom making event. Because TRW is always taught to Freshmen, or incoming transfer students, a TRW making event is often the students’ first introduction to SKEB, Open Arms, and even Clay Club, or the art building. Even though I’m a Studio Art Major, I learned about the project through my first ever class here, TRW; I remember being so incredibly excited to be invited to make a bowl for that semester’s soup social. The ceramics studio was unfamiliar to me at the time! Being able to work there and make something I was excited about opened the space up to me, and made me feel much more at home in the Visual Arts Building- which often feels somewhat intimidating to students who haven’t needed to visit it in the past. Because of their introduction to the project early on in their time at St. Kate’s, students are aware of the project and its events, as well as Open Arms of Minnesota early on. This makes volunteering and attending events feel less intimidating, as they already know what to expect.

On the other hand, Empty Bowls making events are almost entirely student-run; usually facilitated by members of Clay Club, Monica Rudquist’s Ceramics Classes or Global Search for Justice (GSJ) class. GSJ is a sort of “successor” class to TRW that all upperclassmen are required to take before graduating. Students in these classes or Clay Club learn everything that goes into setting up a making event- from rolling out slabs of clay for community members, to sharing the message of open arms. As a student in Rudquist’s 2022 GSJ course, it was remarkable to see students with no prior clay knowledge get to a position where they felt comfortable teaching others what to do. Rudquist agrees; she described how students in this mentor position both feel empowered by what they are doing, as well as how they empower underclassmen and community members to take risks, and make something that they are proud of. It’s a very unique experience, as those making bowls are often having their first clay experience, and those teaching are sometimes teaching others for the first time as well.

Plain and simple, working with clay is also a uniquely powerful and fun art experience, and one that most people don’t typically have access to. It is a multi-dimensional, multi-sensory experience. Those who attend events often talk about how relaxing the process is, and how much they wished they were able to do something like this more often. To me, that’s what SKEB is all about- empowerment. Through making events, people are taking the time to learn a new skill that is, in turn, then used to collect donations that help provide meals for some of our most vulnerable community members. Something amazing happens when we all come together.