Celebrating our Desert Culture Grant Begins

Today kicked off the Celebrating our Desert Culture Hands on Art grant funded through the Imperial Valley Community Foundation. This is the second round of funding to bring the museum's Ceramic Art Youth Program into county schools. This year we are including home school programs as well as continuing to work with high schools.

Today we met during the art class session of the Freedom Academy in Holtville to give an overview of ollas as history and as art. One student, the youngest, explored the structure of the clay and how to stretch the existing sides of her pot taller; with the idea that 2 inches is tall. By the end of this first class, the students got an idea of how difficult it is to make ollas - they are typically 15-20 inches tall. Next week, we'll take the basis we built and try for a 10 inch pot.