Diners attending the Jan. 11 Empty Bowls dinner at New Buffalo Middle/High School will have a choice between student-made clay bowls and decorated glass models.
High school students in art teacher Randy Veldman’s class, with guidance from Vida Kluko, began creating their own unique glass designs on Monday, Dec. 2. The effort was scheduled to last three days before everyone’s focus turned to working with clay for the annual anti-hunger fund-raiser, held on the same evening that the Bison boys and girls basketball squads are slated to host Watervliet.
“It’s a premium looking bowl,” said Veldman of a sample completed under the tutelage of Kluko.
She said the glass bowl project is being funded by Earth Campus, a non-profit associated with New Buffalo’s Green Spirit Farms. Kluko added that the small glass kiln used to finish the plate projects is run “24-7” at the nearby indoor produce growing facility.
“It helps heat the farm in the winter,” she noted.
Various shapes and sizes of glass fragments were carefully attached to a base during a Dec. 2 class, with teams of two working on each project. One the three-dimensional portion of the projects are completed, Kluko will take them back to Green Spirit Farms where two stints inside the kiln are required to meld it all into one sparkling showpiece.
“It fires for eight hours, and then it fires again for eight hours,” she said.
Kluko said she has taken classes at Water Street Glass Works in Benton Harbor and has taught glass classes and taken ceramics courses in Veldman’s room before.
With pupils in two ceramics classes and one basic art gathering participating, more than 30 of the glass bowls are expected to be part of Empty Bowls evening
“I’ve done a couple of sample ones that I’ll contribute too,” Kluko said.
Veldman said a pottery wheel expert is slated to come in later to help students create more high-quality bowls for the cause.
He also noted that New Buffalo High School art students excelled in the recent Technology Meets the Arts Show sponsored by Whirlpool, with Honorable Mention honors going to Elizabeth Ramsey, Julia Ritter, Monica Kaminsky and Jared Maniscalco. Kaminsky also received an “Employee Choice” award.
