MudPuppies dig in at Spring-Ford

An after-school art program unlike any other poured into the Spring-Ford Area School District last year under the moniker of MudPuppies, a class run by the Berks County-based gallery and studio known as Clayote.

While the program swept into the Spring-Ford 5-6 Grade Center more than a year ago, it is still in only its initial sessions at Royersford Elementary School, offering children an opportunity to experience the therapeutic angles of working with clay while helping to stir their creativity.

Children respond excitedly to being called MudPuppies, rushing to see their clay teachers at the end of each weekly class. The program runs in six-week sessions.

Clayote co-owner Danielle Fisher practices the friendly discipline of what she calls “art arrest,” where all kids throw their hands high in the air to show that they’re paying attention, and as she calls roll, she encourages the students to respond with fun, positive-only words instead of the ordinary “here” or “present.”

This playful yet constructive atmosphere dynamic is just one of many reasons MudPuppies look forward to their weekly clay minutes.

To give students a chance to wind down from their time spent immersed in academics, Fisher starts each class illustrating a number of stretching and wiggling exercises, with some complementing the very muscles needed to work with clay.

Different projects are incorporated into each class and session, including one day at the wheel with four final pieces, a day spent glazing, and a final showcase at the end to let parents visit and see the art projects.

Clay projects often include pinch and knee pots of animals, monsters, and elements of what the kids love in their lives.  There are food replicas, love bugs, Native American storyteller pots, sunflowers, log scenes from forests, and maracas.

Students enthusiastically growl at hearing themselves called MudDogs instead of MudPuppies, a label reserved for those who graduated from "puppy" status by having taken the class in previous sessions.

The evolution of improving behavior, self-confidence and overall balance are noticed in students in the MudPuppies program even by the end of a single session, as the grounding way of clay opens up an array of possibilities for not only children but people of all ages, Fisher said.

Meeting once every six days for art class, art teacher Kate Schneider assists with the MudPuppies class for older kids, noting that she does clay with her students when she can but has no wheel for them to use in making pottery.

“It’s one of the more tactile forms of art,” Schneider said, “so it helps children to release tension that they have, and they can work their aggressions out through using clay with their hands.”

Schneider said the students are fascinated by the process of firing clay in the kiln and comparing the intensity of the heat with the more familiar temperature range of their household ovens.

“I feel like it’s a good thing to do to relieve stress because it’s helping me to have a physical experience,” said fifth grader Bailee Greenfield, who is now in her third session of MudPuppies.

“They taught us how to do stuff with clay that we probably wouldn’t have figured out by ourselves,” said fifth grader Cameron Pijanowski, who enjoyed shaping a tree in one recent class.

“I feel kind of calm,” fifth grader Madison DaPoli said about working with clay. “You just make what you have in your mind.”

“I’ve had nothing but positive feedback from parents, and kids love it,” Spring-Ford 5-6 Grade Center Principal Edward Smith said about the art-enrichment program.

“It’s just another opportunity for a kid to express themselves in a risk-free environment,” Smith added. “There is no right or wrong, and it’s your creation—what you think it should be, so it’s the whole expression of art.”

Smith explained that what he appreciates about having MudPuppies in his school is that the class exercises students in a social situation while allowing them to tap into creativity and parts of their mind they might not otherwise realize are accessible for themselves.

“I’m amazed at the talent that’s there,” Smith said about students formulating final pieces from start to finish. “I could never conceptualize all that in my own head.”

To see samplings of MudPuppies work, visit the Clayote blog at clayote.blogspot.com.