Inspired By Glass: 4th Grade Chihuly Bowls
It's one of the most wonderful things when students just absolutely connect with an artist, and are truly engaged and excited when they learn about him or her! Hearing students say "Whoa!" and "Wow!" and "That's awesome!" when learning about an artist is, well... AWESOME!
In 4th grade, we had one of those moments. Students learned about the glass blowing great Dale Chihuly. And they LOVED his work! His colorful, luminescent glass creations were a total hit and wonderment for all of us!
I began this unit a little differently. Rather than exploring Chihuly's work through a series of photographs and curated interesting facts from me, the students set off to discover this artist through their own investigations. Through looking at pictures of his work and watching some amazing videos of Chihuly's artistic process, they began to fill in a worksheet that asked them what they noticed, wondered and thought about as they learned more about Chihuly. Watching Chihuly talk about his work and actually seeing the glass transform into his beautiful organic forms was so much more meaningful for them.
After their exploring, we shared some of things we noticed, wondered and thought about as we learned more about Chihuly with the entire class.
We took inspiration from Chihuly's Macchia series of beautiful, colorful organic shaped bowls that are reminiscent of sea forms.
Each student was given a slab of clay that they rolled out to 1/4" thickness. Using a clay tool, they cut the slab into a organic shape. The clay was then formed in a styrofoam bowl (to hold its shape as it dried) and the edges were pulled and pinched (gently!) to create a Macchia-inspired shape.
After the clay was dried and fired, they glazed their bowls with Sax Colorburst glazes. (NOTE: I absolutely LOVE these glazes! We called them the surprise glaze... as they were fired, different colors pop out of the original color glaze producing the effect similar to the small pieces of color glass that you see in the Macchias. So lovely!!!)
Overall, the process was quite simple, but it was a great follow up to our Precarious Forms unit by exploring the differences between geometric and organic shapes. Students also learned about the properties of glass blowing, and how the process behind making a ceramic bowl is similar in some ways.
Each one of these are amazingly beautiful. It's hard for me to not want to keep them all and display them everywhere!
