The Ceramics program at McNeil offers many projects you can complete in the year. Two of these projects have been “something coming out of an egg” which happened at the beginning of the school year and “shoes” which started last semester and finished in January. 

The first project consists of creating an egg shaped object from two pinch pots and then have something coming out of it, made by the Ceramics 1 class. The planning of this project first consists of sketches. 

“We did 15 sketches to see our ideas, and one of my ideas was a rat,” sophomore Tremeika Keller said. “The creativity was my favorite part, I think my idea was super creative because the egg shape you can make anything out of it.”

Students were given two months to complete and finalize this project.

“I had a lot of issues with it actually, the tail of the rat broke off which caused me to fall behind as I put it back together,” Keller said. “The details of the rat as well because I couldn’t figure out the feeling of the fur.”

These assignments are made to help kids with the techniques they need to learn to better themselves in ceramics. 

“Some of them are from Teacher Resources, but others I make up on my own,” ceramics teacher First Name Reiswig said.

The second project consists of creating a realistic pair of shoes, made by the Ceramics 2 class. Students were able to creatively make any kind of shoe.

“I made a high heel crock combination,” sophomore Ryan Pedraza said. “Then, I made the base and I just put them together.”

Making the shoes identical to each other was an issue students faced. 

“The hardest part was figuring out how to do it,” Pedraza said. “The two look very different from each other, but you can tell I improved on the second shoe.”