SchoolArts - January 2011

Around Scout Island Education Center, a site used by schools in Fresno County to explore the area’s natural environment, a total of 200 cylinder-shaped concrete stools display tiles representing small mammals, flying insects, birds, wildflowers, and more. Twenty sets have been created by elementary, middle, and high-school art students as part of a county-wide project.

I presented a teacher workshop and shared a simplified history of tile designs and techniques, ranging from Islamic, Mexican, and art deco to sculptural bas-relief creations. Teachers picked their themes from those prepared by the docents of the center. Each teacher was free to use whatever style or technique he or she chose as long as the tiles fit the 6 x 9" ( 15 x 23 cm) spaces on the stools.

surface underneath. Another traced leaf outlines to represent different trees, while another used melted glass for the backgrounds of students’ bird designs. The most popular method was the use of bas-relief carving combined with monochromatic glazes.

Beautifying and Benefiting

The objectives of this tile effort were to introduce young artists to a community service project, to use their talents to beautify a particular spot, and to create public art for the benefit of the whole county. The Fresno County Office of Education welcomed this idea and threw a party onsite for all the students involved at its installation.

As a retired art educator, I had been volunteering at Scout Island, giving groups of students an art experience at the river. In conversations with Gary Sells, the director of the environmental program, he and I came up with the cross-curricular tile project. I volunteered to coordinate the project and recruited mostly high-school ceramic instructors to take on this community-wide project.

Student-Made Tiles

Younger students used ready-made
unglazed 6" ( 15 cm) square commer-
cial tiles for their designs, painting
them first with underglaze, then
enhancing them with a clear-coat
glaze. One fifth-grade class painted
animal tracks on their tiles, while a
sixth-grade group
painted scenes of the
San Joaquin River
watershed on their
designs, starting
with high mountains
and continuing on to
the ocean.

Older students
in ceramic classes made their own
tiles using a variety of clays, tools,
and glazes. Each student researched a
particular bird, plant, or other subject
to accurately portray. One teacher
introduced sgraffito, a technique in
which lines are scratched into a top
layer of glaze to reveal areas of the

As art educators we are
always seeking ways
to demonstrate to our
communities the value
of art in education and
in our lives.

Bringing Beauty to Your Community As art educators we are always seeking ways to demonstrate to our communities the value of art in education and in our lives. This project, where learning crossed from the art/ceramics experiences to the study of the natural environment, could be replicated in a variety of locations such as regional parks, trails, river walks, and gardens, each with its own unique flora and fauna. Tile placement could be on existing walls, sidewalks, or benches. Making public art that educates as it is created turns out to be a very special lesson.