SOHO: Space of Her Own: Values, a Photo Walk and the Clay Guild

This week is always one of the favorites amongst big and little sisters; when everyone goes into the clay studio and works with the VisArts Clay Guild!

Just like always we first divided into our groups; some pairs went with Liana and some stayed with Tesni for Girl Talk. This week the girls went on a walk in the neighborhood surrounding VisArts (aka "the Fan") to go take a roll of photos outside! The girls had a lot of fun taking the skills they had learned outside. Sillyness and fun poses were everywhere! But the girls also used their practical skills about composition, focus, aperture, etc. A lot of the girls and mentors said they were thankful for photography that day during closing circle.

This week in Girl Galk the second group of girls did the resolutions exercise we did last week with the first group. After this, the group got talking about our values! Tesni started the discussion and got everyone talking about what values are, as opposed to valuables--like cell phones, cars, or the other material things in our life. The group brainstormed some different values that were important to them, why it's important to have values, and why it's hard if someone has different values than yourself. Everyone gathered in a circle and was given a long list of different values which the girls and women looked through and then circled which ones they felt were most important.

Then each person chose one that really resonated and wrote a sentence in their journal about why that was. Afterwards we shared some of these values and the girls and mentors had a good time comparing their different values. Then it was time for shrinky dinks! In case you weren't aware, shrinky dinks are a piece of plastic that you draw on with colored pencil, then place in the oven so it shrinks up into a hard, tiny charm in the oven! They are a lot of fun to make and to watch happen! The group started to create a shrinky dink bracelet which we will finish next week! Our shrinky dinks were symbols representing our most important value.

The group came back together for snack -- which included a special (and funny) toast from the girls and everyone toasted each other with their waters.

Finally it was time to go into the clay studio. Everyone went downstairs and met all of the volunteers teachers for that night. These were all members of the VisArts Clay Guild who worked with the girls and women on how to glaze pots and wheel throw small bowls. 5 people from the clay guild donated their time to help us learn this, and many more donated pots to glaze. A BIG thank you to our Clay Guild! Many of the same people do it every year, and it's a lot of fun.

One group headed into the wheel throwing studio and the other went to the glaze studio. Everyone in the glazing studio learned how to dip their pots into glaze, and we glazed one pot in a color of our choice and another in Raku glaze ( Raku is a special firing technique that we will get to do in two weeks).

Then the group switched places so they could learn how to wheel throw. This is always a hit because working on the wheel means that you get messy! It's also really challenging and something new for almost everyone doing it. A few girls really took to it and wanted to come back to our First Friday's Samplers on a future big sister date so they can do some more work on the wheel.