While ceramics is one of the most commonly taken electives at Flint Hill, students with a special interest in the art form may also be interested in joining the Clay Club. Founded in 2006, the Clay Club is an extracurricular club in which students learn how to handle clay, build community, and enjoy the medium of pottery. The Clay Club is open to all students, whether they’ve taken a ceramics class or not, and encourages everyone to join. “When I think about Clay Club I think about community. We’re building clay culture together, enjoying one another, and doing good for others in the midst of that,” said Julia Cardone, Upper School Ceramics Teacher and faculty sponsor of Clay Club.
There are many reasons why people join Clay Club, but one of the things that draws people in the most is the fact that the club is open to all people. If you don’t have space in your schedule to take a ceramics class, you can still get experience working with clay if you join the club. You can also get service hours. This year, the club will be doing a project where they will be creating vases, glazing them, and then donating them to places such as retirement homes. Clay Club is also a calming space to be in, the studio is wonderful, the people in the club are kind, and the activities are fun. Devin Dunn, co-president of Clay Club and senior at Flint Hill, said, “The ceramics program also sometimes feels a little exclusive because you walk past and you see all of these strange, wonderful things happening and it can be a little intimidating when you’re first getting started, and Clay Club is a nice way to experience that when you’re first getting started.”
To try and recruit new members, Clay Club went above and beyond on their booth for the club fair. Dunn and Nia Ashenafi, the other co-president, took charge on the project. “Last year and the years prior during COVID, Clay Club has been less active, me and Devin really took it upon ourselves to really come up with new ideas,” said Ashenafi. Instead of using the old poster they had been using, the two decided that they would instead create a new, more aesthetically pleasing poster for new members to take a look at. They also tried to spread as much excitement as possible by talking about upcoming events, such as the vase project. Clay Club didn’t just stop at the club fair, though. They also had a booth at the homecoming spirit alley, where the deep-rooted and kind energy of Clay Club and its members radiated from the table. “We really went with a divide and conquer approach.” Cardone said.
Clay Club has an action packed future ahead of it. It just had its first meeting of the school year on October 3rd, and will continue to have meetings every other Tuesday. If you went to Spirit Alley, you would have seen two very large vessels of clay. Clay Club’s representatives were at the scene, helping the members of the Flint Hill community decorate these projects. Currently, these vessels are in the ceramics studio drying, and they will need to continue drying for several more weeks until they are ready to be put in the kiln. They will need to be fired twice, and then they will finally be finished and ready to put on display. The goal is to have them displayed somewhere prominent on school grounds. Clay Club also has a few other things happening in the near future. They have the vase project as stated earlier, but they also have the ICACC, a ceramics conference held every year that members of the Clay Club are invited to go to. This year’s event will occur from January 28th-February 2nd in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Clay Club meets every other Tuesday, and is still open to accepting new members.
