By Kris Grey
Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor, Penn State School of Visual Arts
When the global pandemic hit our University Park community last spring, classes in ceramics and other fields of material studies were tasked with continuing our research and our support for students in the digital environment. This brought into sharp focus our field’s reliance on physical spaces, dedicated equipment, and hands-on instruction. While it was challenging to make the change so late in the semester, it posed a new question for ceramics moving forward: how can we shift our instruction in the face of this pandemic to continue offering creative, engaging, inspiring, and potentially healing experiences through craft-based activities in digital space?
Yihang Hua, Little Creatures, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU
In addition to my work as the Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State School of Visual Arts, I maintain a professional practice in the expanded fields of ceramics and performance. In the wake of the global pandemic, most of the exhibition, teaching, and performance opportunities I had scheduled through 2021 were canceled. This left me with a deep sense of grief and loss that compounded parallel feelings I experienced about friends and family across the world who were struggling with the health and financial impacts of COVID-19. Thankfully, I was able to secure summer teaching at PSU and I set out on an emotional journey to redesign our curriculum for our Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics for non majors course to be delivered fully remotely.
Yan Yan, Life of Green Onion, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU
In the introduction to our summer syllabus I wrote,
“COVID-19 has temporarily altered the way we offer instruction in material studies and visual art. This summer, we will cover the same material as any intro to ceramics class but in an altered digital studio environment. This will change your physical experience with some ceramic processes. What remains constant is a focus on looking at art and the world through a ceramics and craft-based ‘lens’. This class is designed to be educational, informative, experimental, and fun! I look forward to our collaboration and I welcome your active feedback throughout the course.”
I opted for a collaborative tone at the outset in order to involve the students in their own learning.
Rachel Kim, Requiem of the Ballerina, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU
Meeting, as we did, at the intersection of material studies and digital culture, I chose to teach a brand new module in stop motion animation using colored clays, colloquially referred to as “claymation”. To my knowledge, PSU ceramics has never engaged students in claymation projects. I had the full support of acting ceramics area head, Shannon Goff, who received the 2020 President’s Award for Engagement with Students at PSU, and also Tom Lauerman, whose own studio work synthesizes digital fabrication strategies and traditional craft techniques. With their blessing, I then turned to a personal friend with whom I studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in the early 2000s. Meaghan Ross is a miniature prop and set fabricator based in Los Angeles, CA who has worked in television and film on a range of projects including Robot Chicken, Moral Orel, Flapjack, and Anomalisa. Outside of class time, I interviewed Ross and created video content to deliver to my summer students to inspire and instruct on techniques of model making and animation. To prepare for the instructional delivery, I connected with Liz Miller, Director of Creative Projects at ArtWorks in Cincinnati. ArtWorks is an award-winning Greater Cincinnati nonprofit that transforms people and places through investments in creativity. At Miller’s invitation, I was able to attend a showcase of youth artists’ stop-motion animations aptly titled OUR NEW NORMAL, created in collaboration through a remote summer program.
Justin Rossi, Canappleism, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU
On our last day together, the class screened the final animation projects and had facilitated critique discussions on each of their entries. The result was an incredibly complex, emotional, delightful, joyful and humbling experience for all of us. A selection of student claymation work is featured throughout this post. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did working together to produce them over the summer of 2020. The students asked me if this was a regular part of the Art 080 Intro class experience and I told them it was entirely new and that their class was the first. They emphatically urged me to continue teaching this particular module and it became a point of pride for all of us; a symbol of how extreme duress can yield innovative solutions that result in growth, positivity, and connectivity!