By Kris Grey, Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor, Penn State School of Visual Arts | with contributions from the Bowled Over student and faculty team
In January of 2020, the clay c0ven, PSU Ceramics department student club, hosted its second annual Clay Café at the Borland Project Space. Students transformed the gallery space into a meeting place fully stocked with handmade clay objects of every variation and function with a robust calendar of programming to entice participants. Warm and cool beverages were offered to the public for free and visitors were encouraged to use the handmade ceramic objects crafted by PSU undergraduate and graduate students.
This is one in a long line of student-led community engagements projects, addressing issues of sustainability and the role of art in advancing social and ecological justice, that the ceramics department at PSU has initiated. Conversations during that week around food insecurity and sustainability efforts inspired students and faculty to go deeper with their activism.
According to a 2017 Feeding America survey, 13% of Centre County residents experience food insecurity, close to 21,000 people total.
Following the Clay Café, a new collaborative project playfully called Bowled Over started to take shape. Bowled Over is a social engagement project in collaboration with the SoVA ceramics area, the student-run club – the clay c0ven, and the support of Arts & Design Research Incubator at Penn State University. This is in line with Penn State’s broader “tackle hunger” initiative to address food insecurity across the commonwealth campuses.
Students designed and produced a limited edition series of handmade ceramic bowls for this project. Originally, plans were made to sell the bowls at a special event. Due to COVID-19 limitations, the bowls are available for purchase online this fall. Proceeds from Bowled Over will benefit The Lion’s Pantry and the clay c0ven.
This presented an actionable way for students to participate in the “tackle hunger” initiative addressing food insecurity among the Penn State commonwealth campuses. The pilot of the program was set to run this fall in conjunction with World Food Day on October 16th. Students and faculty in ceramics set our sights on bowl production for the summer of 2020.
Two months later, our worlds were thrown into chaos by the advent of COVID-19. The University Park campus entered lockdown. Students and faculty were ejected from our research and work spaces on campus and everyone braced for the terrifying unknown. In spite of a global pandemic, our student artists did what artists everywhere tend to do — showcase resilience and rise up to meet the challenges! Undergraduate and graduate students, Anna Graef and Andrew Castañeda, transformed a home garage into an offsite ceramic studio and began production for Bowled Over in the summer of 2020.
This fall, when we were able to safely return to campus, the fragile, unfired bowls were transferred back to the ceramic studio where they could be glazed, fired, and finished.
Second-year graduate student, Audrey An, designed a series of interchangeable decals based on drawings and images produced by ceramic students. Incoming grad, Harrison Boden, helped glaze and apply decals to the surface of the bowls and second-year grad, Austin Bradshaw, designed and milled custom wood boxes to house each of the unique pieces.
The result is a limited edition run of handmade ceramic bowls available now for purchase on https://clayc0ven.com/ where you can also view images from Clay Café 2020 and the 2016 Hand Candy: A Ceramic Lending Library.
The Bowled Over Experience: Quotes from Students and Faculty
Shannon Goff, Associate Professor of Art
“Penn State Ceramics likes to lead with generosity, and so naturally giving back is forever on my mind. One sunny sabbatical afternoon in late January, a vision of clarity nearly bowled me over. A holistic cross college collaboration where ceramics students would design and fabricate handmade bowls filled with a limited edition flavor from the Creamery using herbs grown at the student farm. Proceeds from the initiative would support both the lion pantry and the ceramics area. This effort seemed in line with the work Kris Grey and I were already doing with the students to support Andy Goldworthy’s Red Flags project in NYC’s Rockefeller Center. Despite our excitement and commitment to what was becoming Bowled Over, we never could have expected a global pandemic. We weren’t willing to give up but scaled back due to Covid-19. Bowled Over is akin to an antidote for the coronavirus. It has been a joy to witness how the process has emboldened and bonded the students. We foresee Bowled Over growing and changing based on student’s interest in cross collaboration across the University and local area. We look forward to in-person events and scaling the project up to create even more community connectivity, engagement, and an even greater contribution to ending food insecurity in the region, all while making art accessible.”
Kris Grey, Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor
“Bowled Over has been a galvanising force; It’s helped us come together for collaboration and community building during very uncertain times. It’s given us a way to be productive and proactive locally. I feel incredibly lucky to be here with this amazing group of students and faculty who are making change tangible through art.”
Andrew Castañeda, Instructor of Art; MFA 2020
“When I was approached to help with the Bowled Over project, the corona virus disaster was unfolding everywhere. It seemed like there was no escape from the monotony of quarantine. When Kris and Shannon proposed that Anna and I throw bowls for this community event, it was a way to give back and break the deadly cycle of watching YouTube all day. The process of making bowls is intimate, it is a dance. The clay moves, you react, and at some point you end the dance, stop and start again. The handmade bowls borne of this repetitious and meditative throwing process will go beyond helping my soul heal, and help our entire community.”
Anna Graef, BFA
“Working as a part of the Bowled Over team these past few months has been a source of relief and provided a sense of purpose for me. Shannon and Kris’s news of funding for this community engagement project coincided with coronavirus exploding, campus shutting down, our studio access ending, and a lot of uncertainty, specifically uncertainty regarding how to proceed as a ceramics student with no access to the ceramic studio facilities.
“Throwing bowls for this community engagement project gave Andrew and me reason to set up our own makeshift garage studio space, and reason to return to clay for a cause. The repetition of throwing so many similar, though not identical, bowls was an interesting parallel to the repetitive general monotony of quarantine life. Knowing that the bowls were destined to help our community, though, helped to make our bowl production feel more meditative and productive than monotonous or taxing.”
Austin Bradshaw, MFA
“As an artist, we wear many different hats but by far the most important one is how we give back to the communities around us. Working on the Bowled Over project has been a truly humbling experience and I’m truly grateful to be a part of something much larger than myself.”
Audrey An, MFA
“The Bowled Over project offered another creative outlet for all of us. We all collaborated during each stage of making these bowls and offered individual creative assets we have other than our primary medium, ceramics. We have a wonderful group of artists who are all willing to give and serve one another. I always learn from my cohorts and am grateful for them both inside and outside of our studio time.
“One of my favorite parts during the production was the photo shoot we did together for the Bowled Over poster. We substituted real ice cream and syrup for terra cotta clay and white glaze so the ice cream would not melt but also to shout more of our love for clay. And a little bias involved, but I think the photos came out super fun! I enjoyed getting these photos from our photographer, Andrew, before finalizing the poster.”
Harrison Boden, MFA
“For many of us as ceramics artists, we feel an overwhelming sense of community in how we interact with our peers. This project not only gave us the opportunity to become a stronger cohort, but also allowed us to use our abilities to serve those who are in need. I am so pleased, personally, that I was given the opportunity to help others move forward in their lives and look forward to future opportunities of service.”
Images courtesy Andrew Castañeda