Azul Sordo
photo editor

With only a bit of clay, glaze and a mas-sive kiln set to 2,345 degrees Fahrenheit, these TCC students are shaping their own academic experience.

NE art professor Karmien Bowman held an optional on-campus ceramics workshop on Nov. 6 in which participating students could glaze and fire their clay creations. Stu-dents worked at their stations for an allotted amount of time, their pieces ranging from tiny teacups to life-like warthog busts.

The event allowed many students to complete pieces they had left behind after classes transitioned online.

“It’s a lot of hard work to set all this up and maintain it, but it makes us stick to-gether,” Bowman said. “It makes it better for everybody there.”

However, there is still plenty to learn outside of the studio, Bowman said. Pros-thetic bones, NASA’s space shuttles, toi-lets— ceramics are everywhere

Bowman tapped the brick wall next to her. “

Practically everything we’re standing in right now is ceramic,” Bowman said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

NE student Rhonda Ackley finds solace behind the pottery wheel. After a nearly fatal car accident, Ackley said she immersed her-self in the world of ceramics.

“It’s something that I can do that I can see the results of,” Ackley said. “I’ve made something, I’ve done something— that’s helpful and important, especially in times now.”

NE student and experienced ceramicist Ruth Calhoun described the feeling of despair that set upon her in March when she found herself unable to continue her craft.

“At that point, I gave up on all of this because there was simply no way I could get it done,” Calhoun said.

Calhoun previously worked at Feats of Clay Pottery in Austin. Amid nation-wide closures, she is grateful for this opportunity.

“We left things completely as though we’d just disappeared off the face of the earth,” Calhoun said. “So this post-class firing has been a blessing because all of this would have just disappeared.”