LESSON PLAN: Coiling Clay By Heather Lamanno Lough and Cynthia Lofquist, June 2011 Students will learn about contemporary Mexican pottery and create their own miniature pots with coils and shapes. Key questions / ideas Talk about clay as a medium and discuss processes. Has anyone worked with clay before? What was it like? Discuss design principles and elements of art. What makes a shape geometric or organic? What does abstract mean? Objectives INTRODUCTION: Read The Pot that Juan Built, and discuss patterns and colors in the illustrations. Sketch designs from the book illustrations: sun, ant, etc. We will enjoy a tour exploring several examples of Mata Ortiz pottery in the Museum’s Latino Art focus area in the Regnier Center, and think about how what we have seen in the museum’s collection can give us ideas for making our own projects. The artist’s whose works we’ll see today all made pots using the coiling technique that Juan developed, but each artist created unique works of art by using colors, animals and designs. Use a paper template to sketch a design 3 times: We will complete a studio project using air dry clay. Vocabulary Shape Burnishing Line Coil (chirizo) Balance (symmetrical, asymmetrical) Slab (tortilla) Repetition Slip Abstract Score Materials needed Air dry clay (Crayola, white and terra cotta) Clay tools Wax paper to cover tables Pencils masking tape Drawing paper Plastic cups for water Hands-on Tour Elements: pencils, clipboards, clear tape, paper (pre-cut with conical shape divided into 3rds), laminated thumbnail images of animals in designs for matching activity, clay slabs with scratched designs, tiles with different natural colors of clay Assessment Even though we all used the same materials, our works all look different, don’t they? Which students used similar shapes? What other design elements can we see? Tour Artwork Images: Juan Quezada (Mexican, b. 1940) Red on Black Jar, 1999 Polychrome clay Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007.11 Noé Quezada (Mexican, b. 1968) Untitled, 2007 Clay Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009.35 Pabla Quezada (Mexican, b. 1981) Mata Ortiz Pot, c. 2008 Ceramic Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009.07 Eli Navarrete Ortiz (Mexican, b. 1974) Jar with animals, 2008 Polychromed clay with graphite Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2009.06 .