WVCSD Artist of the Week: Kat Baird

As part of Warwick Valley Central School District’s Artist of the Week series, the school recently highlighted the works of junior Kat Baird. She is taking her first high school level visual arts course. Baird, a student in Nicole Sisco’s Ceramics 1 class, is learning the challenges of working in the intricate art form.

She is using her skills, patience and attention to detail, from coming up with an idea, to sketching the idea, shaping the clay, as well as glazing and kiln firing each project. She has finished a leaf bowl and an abstract bowl, so far. Her mom was the recipient of her latest work. Now, she is creating a medieval troll.

“You’re so meticulous and such a perfectionist, and you’re just always very creative,” Sisco told Baird. “You’re an innovator. I love how you create. You think. I’m pleased to have you celebrated for all your work and efforts.”

One aspect of the school district’s Portrait of a Graduate is for students to be creators/innovators. Creators/innovators utilize their imagination and evidence-based knowledge. They strategize to solve problems, investigate answers to their own questions, and meet challenges with solutions to further their own learning. They often share their ideas and feelings through the arts, design, and building processes.

“It’s one of my favorite classes that I’m taking and something that I’m always looking forward to,” Baird said. “I’ve always liked playing with Playdough when I was a kid and shaping things out of that. I just feel like Ceramics 1 is a fun class I can take. I like the control that I can put into my projects and being able to create things. I think of things, picture them made out of clay, and then turn them into the things I’m thinking of.”

Baird said she’s in Sisco’s room every study hall and most lunch periods as well as her class period.

Her initial project, the leaf bowl, was her first time working with clay.

“It actually fell apart a couple of times, so it was like more of a test in a sense, but it was different leaves and different colors. My favorite season’s fall, so I was very happy with the design and to make it.”

Her abstract bowl was a little bit of a “happy accident,” as Sisco said, explaining that after firing it in the kiln it looked different than what Baird was expecting.

“The leaf bowl I made off of things I like,” Baird said. “It was more my style. This one [the abstract bowl] was more of a rustic look. So, even though it didn’t look like something that I would like, it was more perfect for my mom. I went out of my comfort zone, in a sense.”

Now, she is working on her medieval troll, adding textures to her piece, adding details to the mouth, nose and ears after putting a crown on his head that tilts to one side as if it were falling off his head.

“The way the crown was falling, it’s kind of really, truly just kind of falling on his head,” Sisco said. “It genuinely looks like that. Sometimes it’s hard with a static piece of clay to create that movement, but she really has executed that well.”