Seniors Amy He and Rachael Lantner have left their footprints all over campus, figuratively in all they have done and literally in all the running they have done through four years of cross country. 

Yet on this late April day, it is their hands that they are leaving something lasting. They are in the Richmond Art Center, in the ceramics room, working on their capstone project for their Global & Environmental Studies Certificates (GESC). 

They are making bowls from clay, but not just any clay. This clay was dug up on campus last summer during the excavation for what would become the newest dorm, Culbert Hall. The clay was saved and given to ceramics teacher YoonJee Kwak.

Much of their work is now on display in the RAC. Photographer Jeremy Dennis, whose work explores indigenous identity, assimilation, and tradition, has a show, "Everywhere but Unseen" in the Mercy Gallery. Student artwork, including pieces by Amy and Rachael, are on display in the Barnes and Wilde galleries. The opening is tonight (Thursday, May 1) and the exhibit runs through June 8.    

Amy and Rachael have a shared passion for ceramics. They had envisioned a capstone project using natural clay dug up on campus. “We had both wanted to try using [natural clay] at some point,” Amy said. 

The initial work — digging it up — was done for them. But that was just the start. By the completion of their project, they will have made about 30 pieces — but not before much trial and error. 

“Very temperamental” was how Rachel described the natural clay as she laughed. 

The first batch they used was of perfect consistency, she said. The next batch didn’t hold together very well. The reclaiming process — getting the right moisture and plasticity in the clay — takes time. They also had to figure out the right temperature at which to fire the clay. They did some test fires on high fire, which is more intense heat, and the clay melted, so they had to fire at low levels. They also realized they had to throw the clay — shaping the clay on a pottery wheel — at a thicker consistency than they would commercial clay. 

“A lot of experimentation, that’s for sure,” Amy said. 

And a lot of meaning behind what they were making. 

“Really cool, I think that’s the best way to describe it,” Amy said. “One of our motivations for this project is that ceramics is supposed to be an art form from the ground. The clay is from the ground, but we are so disconnected from the clay because the clay we use is commercial [which has other additives]. And like anything we do nowadays, people don’t think about where things come from. But we’re using something directly from Loomis, so we are very connected to our material and the land we are on.” 

“I also feel like it gave me more ownership,” Rachael said. “We are dealing with the clay from start to finish because no one else is using it. But also the fact it was under my feet. We didn’t end up finding it, but theoretically we could have.” 

 Rachael and Amy met through cross country, but their shared love of ceramics helped mold that friendship. “It seems like we were always talking about ceramics,” Amy said. 

Rachael appreciates ceramics in part as an art form that yields an end product that can be used in everyday life.  

“I am a very creative person,” Rachael said, “but I am also someone who likes everything I do to be functional.” One of her drawings, she said, might be tucked away in a closet, and “just the idea of spending so much time on something I am not using is saddening. But the idea of ceramics, that I can use it in my everyday life — every night I have a snack in a bowl that I made.” 

Amy appreciates ceramics in part because of its history, which goes back thousands and thousands of years and spans many cultures.  

“I’m Chinese,” she said, “and growing up I went to a lot of museums and saw a lot of intricate ceramics. And ceramics never degrade. When something is fired, it could end up in the ground, and thousands of years later someone could dig it up. It also prompts me to be more conscious of what I make because I know it can be something that stays here forever.” She also said that because of ceramics she has felt more connected to her culture and has been drawn to the “traditional Chinese method of making ceramics, the blue and white.” 

Before they go their separate ways to college next fall, Amy and Rachael have a summer trip planned to Jingdezhen in China, known as the "porcelain capital" because it has been producing Chinese ceramics for at least 1,000 years. 

As they each were working on a piece on a wheel in the ceramics studio in the early afternoon of April 23, Amy wondered aloud what time they were going on a run that day. It was not just any run; it was a training run for a half marathon on May 18 in Mystic, Conn. Fellow seniors and cross country teammates Yilian Jiang and Ell Chen also will run the race. “We loved cross country and didn't want it to end,” Amy said, so the four teammates decided to train to run 13.1 miles. That requires being fired up, just like a kiln.