The Clay Club displays art

Two Clay Club members have their artwork on display in the Visual Arts Gallery student exhibit, avaliable for viewing through next week.

Heather Myers, second-year ceramics student, has a set of plates and two vases on display. Ceramics has been a learning process for her, she said.

“My first set of plates, they didn’t come out really good at all. They were really thick, and so I really spent my time on these ones and they came out a lot better,” she said.

The plates are engraved with a sort of abstract flame decal. “That’s the best kind of flame I could get on there,” Myers said.

Myers became involved in art when she came to Mt. Hood. She was initially a history major, but took a ceramics class and fell in love with it. As a child, her grandmother had a ceramics wheel in her basement, and she “thought it was really cool,” she said.

Much to her dismay, “when I started taking ceramics here, it was a couple months after (her grandmother) had sold all of her stuff,” she said.

Although Myers is no longer a history major it remains an influence, especially the Greek and Roman time periods, which shows in her piece, “Grapevine Pitcher.”

“I love ancient pots. I really love the Roman period, too,” she said. “Roman, Greek, all that.”

Myers is also the Clay Club president, which has about 15 active members, and puts on various fundraisers throughout the year, including the ceramics holiday sale. Next week the group will a throwing a chili bowl sale.

Another ceramics club member, Adria Frankowicz, whose work on display in the gallery, received the Breakthrough Artist award for the show.

Frankowicz has three pieces on display. Some of the sets feature several pieces; one called “Dinner for Two” features pieces that you would see on a dinner table. “They are all hand-built, and the plates, bowls, and wine glasses are all pinched instead of thrown in a wheel, so they have a lot of cool texture to them from the stretching of the clay,” she said.

“It took quite a while. Throwing in the (pottery) wheel is really quick, (but) pinching kinda took a long time,” she said of the process.

Frankowicz also said the pieces are wood-fired, with no glaze – just the natural ash that was burned up during the wood firing.

For the centerpiece flower vase, Frankowicz said she was going for earthy. “Very earthy was my goal; something that grew. This has the texture of bark, (and) a lot of it comes from being inspired by nature,” she said. “I love the texture of wood and bark and the little cracks in the side of the trees and moss.”

Another set, “Tea for Three,” features a handmade teapot and three little tea cups. “I love ceramics, (because) it’s art and you can use it in your every day (life),” she said. She said she hopes her tea pot will actually get used for some tea.

Frankowicz is the Clay Club secretary. “We’re just a bunch of clay nerds that get together, and we do a lot of fund raising and we pride ourselves on being one of the self-sustaining clubs” at Mt. Hood, she said.

The Clay Club chili bowl sale will feature student-made bowls, available for purchase with chili inside. The sale takes place 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, outside the Student Union.