I previewed the video "Clay Figures, Animals and Landscapes" from Crystal
Productions - featuring contemporary ceramic artists.
It is one of the videos you can get for free from Art Video
World when you buy three (division of Crystal Productions).
Those of you in the planning stages for high school ceramics may want to
get it to help design your program. I can see several project ideas coming
from the section on landscapes (first part of video) - These
are functional ceramics and sculptural pieces (or both) by Wayne Higby (not
much online - Google images search is your best choice for images).
Info on Higby:
http://www.jra.org/craftart/awards/CEA/2002/WayneHigby.htm
Nice mix of organic - traditional and geometric form in clay - Mainly
Handbuilt (some wheel thrown bowls).
The animals section is mainly the work of David Chihooly
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/gilhooly_david.html
It is fun-whimsical. Good for a unit on Humor in Art. I didn't see the
images from the video on his site - but most of them were beavers and frogs.
The video is 20 minutes long. Middle school teachers may want to use
sections of it for your units - while an entire high school ceramics
curriculum could be designed around it. I always began my beginning ceramics
with organic form - coil vessels which often turned into landscape vessels.
See page 16 - #8743 - $39.95 (call 1-800-644-3429 to get your Art Video
World catalog). This video is listed on High School Ceramics - under
resources at bottom:
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/high/ceramics.htm
Many of the ceramic videos on pages 16 and 17 can be selected as free
videos (buy three - get one free)
