In his basement studio on Edwards Street — but before a virtual audience of 30 — sculptor Charles Jones explained on Tuesday night how to build dishes out of clay.
He didn’t use a potter’s wheel, or particularly specialized tools. He had a length of wire. He had a rolling pin. He had scraps of wood and paper, and some foam, and pieces of Plexiglas that he explained he had found in the trash.
“It’s really just a matter of looking around and finding things that’ll work,” he said.
Jones’s clay demonstration was the fourth offering from Creative Arts Workshop as the arts institution adapts its programming to the shutdown created by the Covid-19 outbreak.
With its building closed to classes and its regular spring semester all but cancelled, Creative Arts Workshop has been building out its online classes, demonstrations, and other events through its website under the heading “Creating Freely.”
“Everybody’s working at home,” said Anne Coates, CAW’s executive director, before the class. “We’re trying to be present, visible, relevant — be some of the glue that the arts community turns to us for.”
CAW’s first online offering was a knitting circle with Astrid Bernard and Robin Green conducted over Zoom. About a dozen people participated in that. CAW then offered a free online drawing class with artist and teacher Eric March. Over 100 people attended. “Some people were drawing. Some people were just watching. But there were 100 people there,“ Coates said. “So that gave us encouragement that there was an appetite for this.”
For CAW’s third online offering, artist Paulette Rosen “took us into her bookbinding studio. That was an hour long and she entertained questions. We probably had 45 people at that in the middle of the day,” Coates said.
And then there was Tuesday night’s demonstration, which Jones conducted with skill and humor. He explained that he was going to show the participants “some simple slab building and a chance to build some very interesting pieces.” Within the first 15 minutes of the class, he had created a small dish so quickly that it was almost discouraging. But his speed just meant that he could show the participants the same skills again and again, with a few variations. Before long we understood that the process of creating a small piece from clay was as simple as rolling out a slab of clay and fitting it to a form of our choice. Using wood, canvas, and paper, we could ensure that the clay wouldn’t stick to the form, even if we wanted to texture it, and even when we had to flip the whole assemblage over to finish shaping the piece.
Just as important, apart from the clay — which Jones said CAW could help people figure out how to get if they wanted it — Jones emphasized that the materials needed to create clay pieces were easy to come by. “The board I’m working on is a piece of plywood covered with a shower curtain. Then on top of that, I have a layer of canvas, which makes it easy to move around,” he said. For molds to make various shapes, prospective sculptors could use a “tennis ball and cut it in half with a razor knife.” Or they could use “styrofoam balls from Jo-Ann Fabric.” Or just about anything they liked the shape of. To mold the bottoms of his pieces, he used rolling pins and wooden balls.
“The possibilities of these techniques are endless,” he said. “They’re quite simple, but can create complex pieces by applying them creatively.” It was easy to believe him; we had just watched him do it before our eyes. “All these can be used on your kitchen table,” he concluded.
Looking Ahead
“We closed a few days before the opening of our spring term, which was slated to be on March 16,” Coates said. The loss of the spring term is a “blow to CAW,” as “60 percent of our money comes from tuition.” CAW’s summer term is supposed to open on June 29. “We have all our classes scheduled. We have all our instructors lined up,” Coates said. But she has been hesitant to open enrollment to those classes until she has a clearer sense that it will be feasible to conduct them.
“If we don’t have a summer term, I don’t know how that’s going to look,” Coates said. She knows CAW isn’t alone in worrying about the future. Across the country in the arts, “the mid-sized organizations are going to suffer the most. They have no reserves. They often own their building, so they have a carrying cost that doesn’t go away.” In CAW’s case, “we don’t have a mortgage, so we’re really lucky,” Coates said. But there are still running costs to maintaining the building, which CAW still has to pay whether it’s conducting classes or not.
Meanwhile, CAW is looking to adapt. “We’re looking at the online space as not necessarily an alternative or lesser space, but rather an additional one,” Coates said. “Is that a coping mechanism? I don’t know,” she added with a laugh. But she is serious about looking for opportunities in the shakeup the Covid-19 pandemic has caused.
Aaron Kotowski Photo
“As awful as the pandemic is, and as awful as the economic crisis is and threatens to be … it might be a real change maker, particularly for people in the arts and creativity world, who are always innovating. When things don’t work, they figure out a different way,” Coates said. Artists themselves “are disruptors, right?”
As Coates weighed the options for continuing to flesh out CAW’s online offerings, she had questions. “Is there an appetite to do it? How do we ask instructors to do it? It’s not fair to ask them to do it for free. Can we ask people to pay for it?” she said.
There is the issue of getting art supplies to prospective online students. For possible drawing and painting classes — and based on the large amount of interest in March’s class — “we’ve been talking to [owner] Shawn Szirbik at Hull’s about putting together kits that could be picked up curbside.” CAW could make a similar arrangement with another supplier as with Hull’s to get clay to students, which Jones’s class demonstrated they could still put to use without a potter’s wheel (even if they had to wait to get access to a kiln). Other classes, such as metal sculpture, require more specialized equipment. But perhaps a class on planning metal sculptures could be offered. Other possibilities include photography critique classes.
“And we’re looking for somebody to help underwrite the teaching artists” to pay them for their time, Coates said.
With Creating Freely, Coates said, “I want people to engage in the way they want to. I want to provide different entry points depending on the audience member.” She encouraged community members to contact CAW with questions, ideas, and comments. Meanwhile, CAW is scheduling more online sessions. Arist Nellie Shevelkina will teach a drawing class on April 15. The next knitting circle happens April 16. Harold Shapiro’s “Luminous Instruments” exhibit, which was showing in CAW’s gallery, is now online. In addition, CAW has issued an open call for a prospective exhibit called “Through the Window.”
“Confined to our homes, we are all experiencing a unique way of life in this current moment. This new time at home can be used to engage and explore our creative natures. While we are all staying in, the natural world is coming to life around us. Observing spring through the window may give a sense of hope and inspiration during this uncertain time,” the notice for the exhibit on CAW’s website reads.
Adults and children alike are encouraged to create artwork for this prospective exhibit. “You can use the window pane as your viewfinder or compositional frame, or include the window in your piece,” the call reads. “Works in any medium are welcome… CAW would like to host an exhibition of all works as soon as CAW reopens to celebrate getting through this unprecedented time together. This call is open to anyone in our community at large — no previous relationship to CAW is needed to participate.”
“What do we see through the window?’” Coates asked. When the pandemic ends, we’ll have a chance to find out.
To explore Creative Arts Workshop’s online offerings during the Covid-19 outbreak, visit the “Creating Freely” section of its website.
