Step 3

Depending on the offerings of your local studio, we recommend that each member of the family creates their own pottery piece—it could be a sculpture, a pot, a vase, you name it.

The first day of this activity should be spent in the studio making your art—we’ll leave the specifics up to the expert potters! After hand-crafting your masterpieces, most pottery studios will require you to come back a second day after they have had a chance to “fire up the kiln” and follow the proper techniques for curing your clay. On that day, once everyone has their handiwork all ready to go, we recommend having a family conversation either on the way back to your house or once you’ve gotten back home. Every family member should explain their art piece and talk about why they created it in their own special way. There should also be time spent discussing how they felt while making the object, why they feel that way, and if their thinking about the overall sense of trust in the family has changed.

Much like in the other activities in the Mindful & Expressive program, parents and guardians may need to model this for teens, but maybe creative teenagers are taking the lead and can use these dialogues to help open family conversations with their loved ones. This would typically be the end of the two-day pottery class activity as far as the program is concerned, but if the family finds that they really enjoyed working on the pottery projects—something a little on the messy side!—together, we recommend continuing to regularly participate in pottery classes together and keep supporting your local studios!