By S. N. Creque
Editor-SKNVibes.com
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| Carla Astaphan |
(Basseterre; St. Kitts): Carla Astaphan, a local Potter and owner of the Potter’s House has organized a Pottery and Arts Camp for Kids.
The camp began on Monday and caters to children 6 to 16, where Astaphan and her assistant Doreen Hodge teaches the children basic clay and pottery making.
Today, Friday July, 27, the kids who are normally stationed at the Potter’s House’s premises, journeyed to the National Museum where they were exposed to various crafts
They paid special attention to some African Masks that were on display as apart of the Museum’s three month exhibition entitled ‘Honoring our Ancestors Through Art’.
After they got a good glimpse of the masks they were eager to portray their interpretation of the marks with clay.
Astaphan demonstrated the steps from preparing the needed clay to adding the actual ears eyes and lips for the mask.
The children had a grand time flattening out the clay by slamming it against their newspaper covered desks.
“This is fun,” said one little girl who was giggling with her friends as they slammed the clay on the desk. “We like the loud noise it makes, it sounds like fireworks.”
After they finished flattening out the clay, they then proceeded to carve out a face for the mask. Some of the shapes they made were round, oval, diamond and one young man even created an interesting shape with a circle and a rectangle.
After acquiring their chosen face shape for the marks they then started adding the eyes and lips to the masks.
Astaphan said that even though the camp was organized at the last minute she was very pleased with her 17 campers.
She said that she was encouraged by parents to organize the camp. The Pottery and Art camp for kids is just one of the many workshops and camps she has hosted so far.
One of the young female campers said that she enjoyed yesterday’s activity when they were actually creating the clay and mixing it with water.
“We liked squishing it together,” she said.
They also said that today’s challenge of making a mask was quite tough but they were enjoying it.
Some of them said that they would like to make toy cars and animals out of the clay during the camp.
Zimbo Francis, is the only 16-year-old attending the class.
He said that he was first exposed to Pottery when he attended a workshop by a different facilitator last year.
He said that Pottery could be a possible career move for him in the future,
Assistant Potter Doreen Hodge said that after the children have completed their masks they would “fire” the pottery and perhaps the kids may even paint their marks.
The camp comes to an end next week Friday, August, 3.
