Last week, UW-P hosted the Chiwaukee Academy. This is a collaborative effort with Carthage College and the Kenosha and Racine school districts. It gives K-12 teachers standards-based instruction in seven major study areas from arts, math, and science to technology, reading and language, social studies, and professional development.
Campus was really bustling, but my alumni investigation skills went to work right away when I detected that Alex Mandli '74 might be around!!! I kept finding little clues of his presence and Finally on Friday, I caught him and his colleagues in the midst of something great. Alex is a potter (hopefully you knew that!) and he lead a group of educators throughout the week. They created vessels and I managed to stumble upon them as they prepared to fire them! Alex has a unique way of using clay, water and fire to make beautiful pieces. This shows the lighting of the 'kilns'. The pieces are all in those barrels wrapped in various materials that will create 'designs' on the pieces. The third photo shows that the materials had burned down quite a bit and they planned to return 24 hours later to retrieve the pottery!
You can check out Alex's website to learn more about what he does and to see what the finished products might look like!
I'm extremely fortunate to own a couple pieces of Alex's work! It is amazing and now I appreciate it so much more!
Thanks for letting me join the firing 'ceremony'! :D
