Impressionable artists: Oltman Middle School art club students get creative

• Art projects

Annika Black (left) and her friend, Shelby White, work on getting glue on a ribbon as they helped each other with their projects during art club. They also think it’s amusing that their last names are opposing colors. Bulletin photo by Judy Spooner
• Working with clay

McKenna Nierengarten (left) hopes for artistic inspiration as she rolls out her clay next to her friends, Matalie Stanger (middle) and Mailyn Lerma. Bulletin photo by Judy Spooner
• Art club drawing

Zack Zerjo holds a sheet of sophisticated cartoon drawings he drew during art club alongside his friend, Armani Powell. Bulletin photo by Judy Spooner

Talk about it

When the Oltman Middle School Art Club meets every week after school, there’s not enough time for all of the kids to use the potter’s wheel.

So, art teacher Sue Kapsner showed kids other things they could do with clay such as flattening it with a rolling pin and shaping bowls by hand.

“I show them the skills and let them go,” she said. “They help each other.”

The things they learned to do with clay sparked a lot of interest during last Wednesday’s club meeting. No one was at the potter’s wheel because most of the students were shaping projects by hand. All of the tables were full of students who were working with clay or making pictures with pieces that looked like ceramic tile but were actually sheets of plastic with peel-off backing. Using craft knives, the kids cut the pieces to fit their pictures.

Hannah Wheelock and Samantha Davis, who are friends, signed up for art club because they like arts and crafts. They were making a set or maracas out of clay, similar to ones they made in fifth grade, they said.

Club member Helen Riske, who was working with clay, said she knew in sixth grade that she was artistic. She keeps drawings in several sketch books.

McKenna Nierengarten rolled out a sheet of clay, saying she was not working on a specific project. Then, with watery clay oozing through her fingers, she said she was “massaging the clay for inspiration.”

Zack Zerjo worked on drawing cartoon characters alongside his friend, Armani Powell.

Shelby White worked on a butter dish and bowl with her friend. Both Shelby and Annika Black, who loves drawing, think it’s ironic that their last names are opposing colors.

Tags: st paul park, updates, education