Pip: Art With Korb is one week out from clay, and the whole school feels it — that particular tension of knowing something messy and ancient is coming.
Mara: Frank korb’s latest update from the middle school art studio covers three grade levels all converging on ceramics, from slab-built keepsake boxes to wheel throwing to Photoshop work wrapping up just in time. Let’s start with what’s actually happening in the studio this week.
Week 13: One Week Away From Clay
Pip: The through-line across all three grade levels right now is anticipation — everyone is either finishing up what came before clay, or already deep in the techniques that clay demands. The question is what that looks like grade by grade.
Mara: The eighth-grade situation sets the tone. The post notes that students “are coming in at lunch ALL ON THEIR OWN to practice practice practice the process of the wheel,” and it anchors that effort to a Warren Mackenzie quote: “The first 10,000 pots are difficult and then it gets a little easier.”
Pip: Ten thousand pots. That’s not encouragement, that’s a sentence. But it also means the bar is clear — and the self-assessment rubric the post mentions is doing real work, giving students an actual goal to aim at rather than just vibes.
Mara: Alongside the wheel, eighth graders are building bas-relief sculptures — slab-based, architectural, using both additive and subtractive techniques. Their own homes or another meaningful building. Glazing and test tiles are next.
Pip: Sixth grade is approaching clay from a completely different angle: keepsake boxes. Small containers built to hold something that matters — for themselves or someone they love. The post frames the technical load honestly: slabs, coils, flanges, slipping and scoring, and a serious emphasis on craftsmanship, all before glazing even enters the conversation.
Mara: The vocabulary list alone signals how much is packed in — greenware, bone dry, scoring and slipping. The assignment asks students to plan and template first, which is where the week is actually landing.
Pip: And then there’s seventh grade, still in Photoshop — which, in this context, feels like the one grade level not yet allowed at the table.
Mara: The post is straightforward about it: two more days of layering, masking, and file management in the Visual Biography project, and then, as it puts it, they move “from 21st century technology to that from 32,000 years ago.” The contrast is the point — digital tools out, hands in clay.
Pip: All three grades, different materials, same destination.
Mara: And the post closes with a Corita Kent reminder that cuts across all of it — rule number seven: the only rule is work.
Pip: Ten thousand pots, one keepsake box, a Photoshop file you finally close — the studio keeps asking the same question in different materials.
Mara: Next week, all three grades should have clay in their hands. That’ll be worth checking back in for.
