Ceramics & Teaching

Some low-fire pottery, mosaic, and mural work done in the summers during my time as an art teacher. Pottery was done as demos for wheel throwing, hand building, and tile making.

Camper Work and Studio Photographs

Previous to my employment, Circle Pines did not have an organized art program or dedicated space. I set up a ceramics and art studio in an old goat barn, which can now support a kiln, and around 20 campers inside, with lots of room outside on picnic benches. Renovations to the space included murals and artwork painted by campers, 3 large wooden kick wheels, 3 electric pottery wheels, and tables built on site by staff.

Every day art began during the "work project" period, where campers would learn construction, animal care, and complete camp chores. I would offer fun projects like mural painting, and much needed camp repair projects like sign repair, or painting a new shed, cabin, or fence.

In the afternoon, I offered a one hour period of "free art" time during the camp's rest period, where campers could come work on personal projects, finish work from earlier in the week, or hang out. Rest period was followed by 2 hours of art, where 20 campers could sign up (the art barn was always full!) The Art Barn had different activities every day, with demos that I led on various topics like wheel throwing pottery, hand building, glazing, mosaics, mobiles, photography, collage, bead making, graffiti and wheat pastes, painting, paper mache, etc. My focus on sustainable art practices is what guided my activities each summer, where I taught campers to find things in the woods, kitchen, and recycling to turn into works of art.

Other photos include art activities like rock painting, ceramic tiles, pottery, hand-built ceramics, tie dye, cyanotype photography, and collaging and drawing. During the theatre program, I teamed up with the musical director every year to lead the stage crew, who constructed and painted sets and props.

I take great pride in establishing a dedicated art program at such an excellent camp, and I worked to train staff to take over the program after my 3 years of running the art barn.

Germantown Friends School Art and STEM Program, 2026.

During the summer of 2026, I worked as GFS's Art and STEM Teacher for the elementary school EPIC Camp. My activities focused on how art and science overlap. For example, campers began the week by playing an art game about inventing their own dinosaurs. Once they had drawn, named, and written about their dinosaur discovery, we dove into the scientific process of how fossils are made. Using flour, salt, and water, we made our own clay, and pressed different pasta shapes to imagine what our new dinosaur might have looked like as a fossil, and then used that dried pasta to make the skeleton of our dinosaurs.

Each week had themed art and science activities that interconnected, from homemade stained glass, cardboard aliens, boats made from recycled materials that we sailed in water, cyanotype photography, and the egg drop challenge.

Sustainable Practices Teaching Demos

Part of my focus in teaching art is utilizing low-cost sustainable materials, like ceramics, cardboard, newspapers and magazines, and other trash-picked items, and teaching students how to combine them and turn them into art. One such activity involved a hand-rolled African paper bead craft made from newspapers, magazines, and homemade glue from flour, a stick from the woods, and ceramic charms to make a mobile.

Monster Making Activity

A game I made for elementary students as an alien-making activity. Students rolled dice to help make a randomized alien, drew their alien on paper, cut out the shapes from cardboard, painted them, and created a spaceship for them to live in from paper plates. Examples of demo work and student work below:

Summer 2025, for SCH Academy's Summerside Program.