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An Approach to learning. 

There are at least 8 ways learners process and retain information.  The traditional way of teaching in schools often does not encourage all the students to use their best learning skills.  Unless the teacher is equipped with extra time and abilities to let students learn in ways that suit their unique personality traits, some of them may stay behind, and feel incompetent, incapable, and unintelligent. This often affects their well-being and easily leads to behavioral problems.
Children who feel smart and competent are eager to learn and feel happy and successful among their peers. They will embrace all opportunities and work their way through challenges. The discouraged student will give up.
In this blog post, I will use clay activities to explore and discuss an approach to learning; how it benefits learning strategies on various levels and ages, and how teachers can introduce pottery to students, without the need for a pottery studio.  I will begin to discuss the benefits of integrating pottery into early childhood development and how clay activities assist in their development.

Let's back up: how is clay beneficial? 

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When I first started doing pottery, I was strictly attracted to the material; the holistic nature of working with clay, and the challenges of holding a fired pottery object in my hands. I did not have any idea of how healing and beneficial this medium can be for any person.
 
Children were always attracted to my studio.  While growing up, my own 3 girls were around me all day long, pounding, poking, rolling, and building with clay. Their friends joined the fun and they were busy for hours without me having to watch over their shoulders.  As the years passed, I learned more from working and teaching pottery classes than I ever thought possible and it turned out to be like a termite nest; what is seen on the surface and what goes on below, are 2 completely different things.
 
Pottery draws people in. It captivates and mesmerizes them. The more a student creates clay objects, the more the clay helps to develop their skills as they learn to be in control of the clay. They learn to communicate better, to self-express better, to solve problems, and in the process build self-esteem. Pottery activities are the one thing that keeps building back to the person manipulating it, making it a perfect tool to integrate into schools. Today, my knowledge and experiences about the benefits of students learning through clay activity are concrete and widely backed by research.  

​Pottery as a visual arts solution for schools. 

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Kindergarteners used paperclay to study snow owls and their habitat.

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1st. graders studied landform and reported their knowledge with painted paperclay.

There are a wide variety of artistic activities benefiting children and their learning abilities. Most are suitable to incorporate in the classroom and each of them can encourage children to find their preferred way of learning.
 
Pottery is a visual art activity. Students can begin to play with clay from a very early age. As soon as a child understands not to put clay in his or her mouth or throw it around, they are ready to discover clay. Having the potential to create 2 and 3-dimensional art with this shapeable material, makes it more versatile than many other types of visual arts. Spatial relationships, geometry, and cause-and-effect principles become very early on natural learning curves for these young kids.
 
Playdough and similar commercial sculpting mediums are colorful and attractive to children. In contrast, pottery clay is an unattractive brown or gray, which at first may appear to be a disadvantage, until one realizes that choice-making is a crucial part of the growing process.
 
Pottery clay needs ceramic stains and glazes or acrylic paints to add color in the final finished product. The ability for students to have control over color, adds a diversity component to pottery clay, which is often suppressed in the cookie-cutter world that we live in. It has an open-ended character providing students with a 3-dimensional canvas with permanent qualities. Students who enjoy clay at an early age will be able to create permanent pottery work as they get older, holding the promise of self-worth, a strong element in learning success. 
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Paperclay formed crow, fired and glazed in a regular pottery way.

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Paperclay formed crow left unfired and painted with acrylic paints.

The use of Paperclay is a cheap alternative to learning arts in schools

Due to budget cuts, teachers often work with minimal artistic materials. Pottery clay is cheap and unfired pottery clay can be recycled multiple times. The same ball of clay can be used repetitively, as long as it is kept soft with water, stays uncontaminated, and rests in plastic after it is being used. In some areas, especially Mississippi, clay can be dug up from the earth, adding another learning opportunity for, especially older kids. Few art mediums stimulate growth and skill in children in the way that clay does. Maintaining and reclaiming used clay correctly makes it one of the cheapest mediums to introduce into the school classroom.
 
Teachers are often under the impression that they need a pottery studio set up, and access to a kiln in the school to do pottery with students, while all that is needed are washable tables, water buckets, clay, found objects that may serve as tools, and a teacher willing to let students play and explore clay.
 
Paperclay is a clay medium widely used among potters.  The added value of this medium is that it does not have the same technical and scientific demands that other pottery clays have. The paper fibers provide added strength during the making and its forgiving qualities allow students to focus on the project. Although it is regular pottery clay, the added paper, makes it a medium suitable to add wet to dry clay, and allows for fixing mistakes after it has been through the kiln. It can be fired to become true pottery objects, but it has tremendous value in a school classroom because it can stay unfired. Paperclay is strong enough to be painted with acrylic paints and acrylic sealers once the student sculptures are dried. It will last as long as it stays protected from water. These sculptures, painted colorfully, provide opportunities to explore and integrate art with class subjects.
Compared to artificial modeling clay materials, real pottery clay has endless learning opportunities for students of all age
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Paperclay can be store-bought, or mixed up in the school. It is possible to dig up regular clay and add paper to it to make it stronger for use in the classroom.

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In this image Antoinette shows how clay can be used as a permanent canvas to study vegetation.

Antoinette is available to assist schools to start their own clay program, regardless of  access to a pottery kiln or not. 
Through arts integrated lessons Antoinette can help to bridge the visual arts with the  all subject areas. let her know where your needs are and with your collaboration she will help you to develop an approach to teaching that will benefit your students. 
Also see the article about paperclay mixing
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The relaxing effects of clay. 

Pottery is considered a messy activity. That is true; after all, it is a natural material from the earth.  Consider a day out in the garden or on the beach. Few things can satisfy human well-being like an opportunity in nature and not to worry about appearances. This can be very relaxing.

​Cleaning up the mess may be a reluctant activity, but helps to develop a sense of hygiene and eventually a satisfactory experience in children. A great example is hand washing before a meal is served, which helps enforce what we are drilling into our children all the time.  The natural character of clay can have a similar effect on any child; its relaxing and calming effects are instrumental in attention span development. 
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Beta club students are painting their mugs which reflects the Mississippi culture.

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Young students are engaged in learning which characteristics distincts a chicken from a snow owl.

Early development of skills in young children

​Clay handled in its most basic way, often presented as a mud puddle in the garden,  benefits children from a very young age. It is a combination of learning experiences that all begin to happen at the same time. They find out clay is malleable. By rolling, pinching, and poking clay, students develop hand-eye coordination. Add to that tactile exploration and children get early sensory experiences. They begin to develop spatial relationships, receive their first geometry lesson, and are confronted with their first cause-and-effect principles.

As soon as a child touches clay, their observation outside their normal protected world begins to develop. The clay is wet and cold, makes squishy sounds, smells like mud, and then....is so much fun! It may have a sandy or slippery texture that may be an unpleasant experience at first, but once they find out that messy is good, they want to explore it. Play with clay allows for learning on the most basic level with no external interference.

​When a child is relaxed, they are open to information. The next step is clean-up, which addresses discipline and sequencing of events; more layers of skills are added to the learning curve. 

Developing motor skills

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The clay may be a boring grey color, but the child have a vivid imagination that needs further development.

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Developing small motor skills. That little finger must work just right to smooth out that area.

Handling clay is a physical activity that helps to develop small and large motor skills in kids. Larger muscles learn to be controlled when a ball of clay requires slamming and pressing down. To control those larger muscles, they sometimes have to get up and come with force down on the clay.  Smaller motor skills come into play when their fingertips attach and smooth out small areas where they join one piece of clay to another.

When older students prepare clay to work on a pottery wheel, the wedging process of clay helps to develop large motor skills further, while wheel work helps to refine small motor skills. 

The handling of pottery tools teaches students how to have more control over their motor skills. With pottery tools students  must develop a depth perception of the thickness of a piece of clay and how to control the tools to prevent mistakes.

​Clay is soft when kids work with it, very different from paper. It is easy to poke a hole right through the clay. Drawing a line in clay, or slicing into it, provides a certain degree of resistance. This resistance teaches students to gain a different type of control. The beauty of it all is that mistakes can be fixed. ​

Planning and Solving mistakes.  

Mistakes with tools happen easily but clay provides opportunities for repair which adds another layer of learning; to fix mistakes easily, adding another layer where they gain confidence. Therefore they learn from a very young age not to be scared of making mistakes, since there is a solution:  make a plan and solve the problem by experience.  There are few things that makes our children so proud as when they can say the did something all by themselves. ​
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Developing fine motor skills.

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Planning and executing a project is a strong part of the learning curve. Students who can break down the elements of a story has a better understanding of where to go next.

Working with clay is therapy. 

​Clay can be therapy for students of all ages. For example, a 6-year-old kid who struggles to form letters and numbers correctly and who cannot write consistently on lines on paper, may be frustrated with a low self-esteem, which may spiral deeper into a lack of cognitive receptiveness. 
Soft, responsive, clay is very appealing to children who struggle with control over a pencil and writing. Such children will gain confidence as they begin to feel that they can move the clay in any direction that their hands command. They can tear it apart, squish it back together, and slam it back and forth, using tools to make marks, slice it, and add it back together. Not only does it strengthens those motor skills, but it takes the frustration and the sense of failure away. Imagine how they can tell that to each other and become proud of their successes.  So mesmerized by this funny material, they begin to realize that they can manipulate clay and have control over it.  That leads to a rise in their self-esteem and now they begin to plan what they want to do. They begin to discover what they can do with the clay and soon, they begin to succeed.

It is never too late to introduce children to clay. Anxiety and other related issues dissolve when they explore clay and begin to see what they can achieve with it. 

Pottery in schools helps to develop the whole child. 

While any other clay will be useful, pottery clay has the potential to benefit students in many more areas than what is discussed in this blog post. Antoinette  will discuss how pottery clay affects imagination, cognitive development, planning, problem-solving skills, language, communication and social skills, attention span development, and the calming effects of clay in a follow-up blog post
All and all this is an extensive topic, suitable for arts integration and very worthy for any teacher to take notice of and explore for their students.  
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In the series of images above, Jaydin planned this sculpture, using wheel thrown and hand built elements and assembled it together into one sculpture over several days.  He had to test  and add new pieces, broke parts away and reorganize the elements until he was happy with the end results. In some instances we had to hold our breaths, experience disappointments and took on new challenges. 
​The end result was well within what could be expected from a 10 year old student. He was fortunate that he had Antoinette's direct and full attention, but imagine a class group all working on a sculptural project like this. Not only will they be able to plan, but they will be able to communicate and encourage each other. They will build confidence and perseverance among many other skills that will be discussed in a next blog post about using pottery clay for arts integration in schools. 
Antoinette is certified as a Teaching Roster Artist and is  available to help teachers to use real pottery clay in their school classroom as an approach to teaching. Through Arts Integration she collaborate with K12 teachers to give their students a better understanding of any class subject. Antoinette uses the creative process of clay  to connect with subject areas in schools. 
Paperclay is her preferred  material, because it can be used in any school as an artform,  regardless of the availability of a pottery kiln. 
The objective is to keep building and developing the whole child whether it is in or outside of the classroom. 
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All images taken by Koos Badenhorst


Teapot elements
Have you ever looked at a teapot and imagined its parts as symbols—perhaps even reflections of people
Let’s take a closer look at the elements of a teapot and how they function.
​At its core is the body, the vessel that holds the contents—warm liquid cradled within. The spout creates a pathway, allowing that liquid to flow outward. The lid keeps everything contained, preserving warmth within the teapot’s belly. The handle provides direction and control, guiding the movement of the vessel so the contents can be poured, either gracefully through the spout or, if mishandled, through the opening. Beneath it all, the foot rim anchors the teapot. It insulates against temperature transfer, protects the surface it rests on, and stabilizes the form, ensuring balance.
Balance between body and spout 
​While a teapot’s body may take on countless forms, harmony between its parts is essential. The transition from body to spout, and the relationship between handle and foot, must be fluid and balanced—otherwise, the pour is compromised. A well-positioned handle allows the user to guide the teapot with ease. When angled correctly toward the spout, the liquid flows in a smooth, elegant stream. If the spout is poorly formed, however, the result is a frustrating sputter or spill. Likewise, a properly fitted lid should remain secure when the teapot is tilted. If it requires a second hand to hold it in place, it fails in both design and function—especially for someone with limited strength, who may already struggle to lift and pour.
Steamhole
Ventilation is another critical detail. A small hole—often in the lid—allows steam to escape. Without it, pressure builds, forcing liquid to spatter from the gallery where lid and body meet.
The foot rim completes the form, but it is far more than a finishing touch. Since the maker cannot predict the surface on which the teapot will rest, the foot must adapt—protecting against rapid heat loss on cold materials, preventing damage to delicate surfaces, and maintaining stability even on uneven ground.
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Chicago museum of Art - Meissen teapot


Now, imagine yourself as a teapot.

 Are you one that pours with ease and grace, or do you spatter under pressure?
Do you hold yourself together, or do you rely on others to keep your balance?
Is your handle strong and supportive, guiding your direction—or does it pull you off course?
And what of your foundation—do you stand steady and grounded, or are you easily unsettled?‭‭
In my work, Teapots in Conversation, these questions take form in clay—each piece suggesting personality, tension, and dialogue. Photographs from a teapot exhibition at NCECA capture this ongoing exploration.
When creating sculptural teapots, these same elements remain, but with greater freedom. The artist may exaggerate, distort, suggest, or even omit parts—so long as the piece still reads as a teapot. A handle may become symbolic, a spout implied, a lid merely suggested—sometimes transforming the piece into something closer to an ewer.
A handle situated correctly will make it easy to guide the body to direct the liquid to the spout. When the handle is tilted towards the spout, the liquid will flow easily, in an eloquent stream, or it will spatter and spit as it comes out, depending on how well the spout  is formed. A well formed lid,  will stay in place and not fall out if the teapot is tilted. If it must be  held in place with the other hand it is not well formed. Consider an elderly, frail and weaker person pouring tea; they may need 2 hands just to hold the teapot.  There must be a vent hole in the lid (some are in other places on the teapot), because steam builds up when filled with hot liquid and forces spattering at the gallery between the lid and body, if there is not a vent hole where the steam can escape. 
Then there is a foot rim which is finishing the form of your teapot. For a functional teapot this is a big consideration, because as the maker you do not know what kind of surface the teapot will stand on. A cold surface will cool the liquid down too quickly, whereas a wooden table may burn from the hot liquid. If the surface where the teapot will be used, is not perfectly smooth ( consider knotted wood or pebble stone tables) the foot must be as such that it will still keep the teapot balanced and up right. ​
To spark your imagination , consider yourself as a teapot. What kind of teapot are you? 
Are you the teapot that pours eloquently, or do you spatter and spit? Are you the one whose lid needs to be held in place by another hand, to prevent you from spattering from under your  lid or do you stay in place and do not spatter when  tilted?

Are you a teapot with a sturdy and strong handle that directs the body well, or one that pulls the body down? 

What kind of a foot rim do you have is you are a teapot? One that stands firm and holds the body away from a hot or cold surface, or do you not have any foot rim at all. ​
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Teapots in Conversation by Antoinette Badenhorst.

When creating sculptural teapots, these same elements remain, but with greater freedom. The artist may exaggerate, distort, suggest, or even omit parts—so long as the piece still reads as a teapot. A handle may become symbolic, a spout implied, a lid merely suggested—sometimes transforming the piece into something closer to an ewer.

Images taken during a teapot show at NCECA


​To create sculpted teapots, the same elements are considered, but any other elements can be added or left  out, with the condition that the teapot sculpture must be recognizable as a teapot. The artist has the freedom to suggest a body, a handle a spout like in the teapot by Lou Pierozzi in which his teapot may possibly refer to a steam kettle. See my article about him in A Ceramics Art and Perception Magazine: "One man’s junk is another man’s treasure"
The term "suggest" can become a an open space for instance suggesting there is a lid, often referred to it as an ewer. 
Richard Notkin created many teapots during his long clay career. Some of his most known teapots were in the shape of a heart. He used this theme over and over to convey messages. See my article written article ​Peace/War, Survival/Extinction An Artist’s Plea For Sanity
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Jim Lawton teapot/ewer

Artists like Lou Pierozzi play with these ideas, reimagining the teapot form with references such as steam kettles, while Richard Notkin revisited the teapot repeatedly—most notably through heart-shaped forms—to communicate powerful messages about humanity, conflict, and survival.
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As so often happens with me, I lost the information of some artists below. If you happen to know who created this teapot, please let me know. It is created from porcelain, breaking loose from a leather bag.

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Teapot by Lou Pierozzi

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Kurt Weiser Teapot

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Porcelain teaset

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Jeff Campana teaset

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Help me identify the makers of these teapots. 

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In the end, whether functional or sculptural, the teapot remains a deeply expressive form—one that quietly mirrors the human condition.

Small collectors teapots by Antoinette

Below is a hand full of my own teapots that I made over the years. Most of them found homes. 
​The small collectors teapots are on average the size of a small orange. Although they all function as teapots, it is considered to be ornaments, due to the size, but also the way handles, lids,  knobs and in many cases the foot rim were created. 
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Wheelthrown porcelain teapot with golden trim

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An award winner during the 43rd annual Bluff Park Art show in Alabama

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"Bowl me over" from Teapots, Seapots exhibition in Portugal

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From the "Teapots , Seapots series"

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Antoinette demonstrates how the lid is secure when the teapot is tilted.

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a tilted teapot with a different handle than the one above.

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Note how she creates a long flange to hold the lid secure.

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"The old lady in her coat "

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Hand built porcelain collectors teapot with green glaze and golden trim.

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Hand built porcelain teapot with golden lustre trim

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Wheel thrown functional teapot, available in shop.

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Press molded and hand-built colored clay teapot

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Press molded porcelain teapot.

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Wheel thrown porcelain teapot with turquoise glaze.

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Orange press molded porcelain teapot with wheel thrown elements.

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Enzogama in Bei Hokkaido permanent collection teapot.

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Press molded little green collectors teapot.

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Wheel thrown red collectors teapot with golden lustre trim.

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Completely pinched teaset during the "Pinching Teapots online workshop.

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My way is not the highway. If you can take some things from my way of throwing and trimming and develop your own style, I have achieved exactly what I wanted to. Each and every one of us has our own ways of doing and handling things and the teacher that tells you cannot do it different from his or her way, is not honest with you and you have all rights to challenge that person.
Antoinette shows in short video clips how to trim porcelain during the workshop in Moose Jaw, Canada. During the time in Canada she interviewed Jack Sures at the University in Regina. Her online porcelain classes are much more in detail with many more tips and techniques.
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Antoinette Badenhorst interviewed Connie Christensen during the recording of her online teapot workshop for TeachinArt. Connie demonstrates faceting techniques on the pottery wheel. She throws a teapot, sugar and creamer, tea bowl, two different types of covered jars with lids, and alters a serving tray in front of the camera. She concludes the workshop with detailed instructions on making and attaching a cane handle to a teapot. She also provides information on where to buy cane and how to prepare it for making handles. ​
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Paul Lewing used to be a potter. He gradually evolved into a China Painter. He is also a painting artist that draws inspiration from nature. Paul was always more interested in decorating his work than making the actual clay objects. His career spans over 50+ years of teaching and making. He is one of TeachinArt Online School of Art's prestigious artists. His book about China Painting is the only one of its kind in the world, due to the fact that he broke away from traditional methods. 
This interview was recorded in the pottery studio of Antoinette when he presented his online class China Painting as a teaching artist for TeachinArt.
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Marcia Selsor a Professor Emerita (Montana State University-Billings) is renown for many areas in ceramics. Over a span of 50+ years in clay there are few areas in pottery that Marcia did not cover. 
Lately she specialized in alternative firing techniques, a style that she developed further than the raku techniques with horses from earlier days. ​
What is alternative firing techniques. 
These firing techniques are mostly reduction firings in which smoke is formed when the fire is choked and forced to find oxygen from the porous clay work. 
Pit fire, saw dust firing, raku and barrel firing are a few names associated with alternative firing. 
​Marcia specializes in this online workshop with TeachinArt in obvara and raku techniques, while she show her students how to build a raku kiln. ​
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“My pots are made to be used” says Nan.  When I interviewed Nan she told me about her life as a potter, her dedication to her students and where her career started. Nan studied in England when she were "accidentally" introduced to pottery. It was an instant passion. 
Nan worked and studied in England and Ireland before returning to the USA. Her life long career has an impact on students all over the USA and now that she also teaches with TeachinArt Online School of Art, her knowledge reaches far beyond American borders. ​
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Jack Sures is one of Canada's premier ceramicists and art educators. He was instrumental in establishing the ceramics department at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus (now the University of Regina). 
He worked and exhibited in Japan, Paris, London, USA, and was appointed by the United Nations Handcraft Development Program to set up a ceramics program in Grenada. 
Jack was instrumental in establishing the ceramics department at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus (now the University of Regina). ​
Antoinette interviewed Jack while she was presenting hands-on workshops in Regina and Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan, Canada.
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Malelane was paradise. Our children were young preschoolers; in fact, Tinyke was a 9 month old baby when we moved there. Koos was working at the sugar mill, a booming new industry for a region that previously relied on vegetables for their daily bread. 

I was raised in Namibia, where we only saw flowing rivers when it rained in the Khomas Hochland Mountain, just so that it will run down in a few hours into dry sandy beds? So in comparison with my childhood home, this was true paradise.

It was a luxury to see the Crocodile River constantly running. Drought was not uncommon here, but the vegetation was lusciously green in contrast with the mostly grayish green landscapes where I grew up. Bougainvillea became trees in comparison with the ones growing in Namibia and I never saw bigger banana leaves than the ones in the Lowveld where it grew in plantations.  There were crocodiles and hippopotamus in the river and if you watched closely, you could see elephants or buffalo on the other side of the river in the Kruger National Park. Our favorite leisure time was on Sunday afternoons when we took the children to see these animals in and around the river.
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One of Antoinette's early students.

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Antoinette and other students at work in her early days in Malelane, South Africa.

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One of Antoinette's early coil pots.

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Some of Antoinette's early wheel thrown pots, altered.

​First beginner pottery kiln and pottery glazes
It took me five months before I had my first kiln. Someone advertised a kiln for R400 (about $40 in current terms) in Nelspruit, a neighboring town. It was time for my next lesson and it was here that my husband showed his weight in gold regarding my pottery escapades!

The kiln was a flimsy old top loader, with broken elements and only two settings: on and off. With the help of technicians, Koos hand coiled elements and before long we had a kiln going! 

By then I collected enough class fees to buy our first glazes. Not knowing any better, I ordered 12 different one-kilogram (2.2 lb.) glazes to dip our pots in. Of course it did not work too well (our pots were too big to dip and we did not know of any other way, so we poured the glaze. We managed though, and before long we had our first finished pieces fired. Our first pots were made and we were very proud of ourselves.

As I improved, curiosity sometimes got the best of me and I opened a kiln way too soon, just to end up seeing pots cracking in two right in front of my eyes.
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This is how Antoinette signed her first pots.

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Note how badly this small earthenware pot were glazed.

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An image from TeachinArt where Antoinette demonstrated the pottery coiling process.

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Antoinette created this award winning translucent porcelain sculpture, which was featured and published in a United States/Korean exhibition.

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This jug was hand-built with porcelain clay. It has a hollow handle.