Monstrous Collaboration: GHS and Irle Students Make Art

The Glasgow High School ceramics class was lucky enough to collaborate on an artistic project of a literary kind with Mrs. Klind's kindergarten class recently. Fittingly, the results are now on display at the Glasgow City-County Library.

The ceramics class first visited the kindergarteners where they read the children's book, I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll. It's a book about Gabe the monster, who takes the night off to go fishing, and his friend Ethan, who can't sleep without Gabe's scary sounds. In the story, a line of characters file in to fill Gabe's spot, but none of the other monsters are quite scary enough for Ethan. After reading the book, each kindergartner was paired with a student from the high school. Together they drew pictures of what the kindergartners believed to be the best monsters. The students from the high school then took the drawings back to the ceramics class. Over the next few weeks, they created the monster sculptures to the best of their abilities.

The monsters were bisque fired, then the kindergartners came up to the high school to glaze the works. In the end, each of the kindergartner's creations was replicated. The high school students put forth their best effort to make their kindergarten partner's vision a reality. It was a challenging project for the high school students but they persevered. There were some minor accidents involving dropping, bumping and/or breaking monsters, but it all came out right in the end. The artworks will be returned to the kindergartners by the end of the school year.