Firing Up

Firing up is a national project by the Crafts Council trying to get ceramics back into schools. Most schools have access to ceramic equipment like kilns etc but a lot of teachers don't have any training in ceramics so cant teach it to their pupils. so, the crafts council have set up this project to re-introduce ceramics into mainstream education. This is the second year of the project - last year the project ran in London and, I think, Liverpool and this year it is in Manchester and another city (I forget where). The Manchester sessions are based in Manchester School of art - so that's where It involves me! There was a call for third year students to help out while the artist is running the workshops - just mundane thing like fetching slip and water and washing tools etc but its is good opportunity to see how workshops are ran and there are excellent opportunities further in the project. The project, how I understand it, runs in two sections. Firstly teachers from the involved schools come to Manchester Metropolitan University to receive workshops in ceramics skills which they can pass onto their pupils (this is what I have been helping with tonight) and in the second section of the project the artists go into the schools and run workshops with the pupils. There is also opportunity to help at this stage too which will be very good practice for if I want to teach or run workshops in the future. There is also an opening event in December at Manchester Art Gallery and, I think, another such event later in the project. I really think that this whole project is an amazing idea - I wish I had learned more about ceramics at school as, what little we did, I really enjoyed it. Also, ceramics is becoming less popular and it would be such a shame if we cannot revitalize this lost passion as ceramics is such a grounding, natural instinctive process which has obsessed people since the very beginnings of civilization. To lose ceramics as a mainstream form of art or craft would surely be a tragedy? This is my profile page for the Craft Action Network: http://www.craft-action.org.uk/profile/AutumnGraceEtherington This is the group page for the whole of the Firing Up project: http://www.craft-action.org.uk/group/firingup And here is the page specifically for the Manchester section of the Firing Up project: http://www.craft-action.org.uk/group/firing-up-manchester