Carolyn was an advanced art student who had come up with a theme for her semester’s work. She would do jesters, clowns. When she started clay, nothing seemed to work right so she postponed it until clay was the only project she had left. Finally inspiration struck and she began a large curled joker card. I watched it take form as she worked to complete it on time. It had to be finished, dried, fired and glazed before the fall semester’s eminent end. It was almost finished so she left it out on the table covered in a piece of canvas cloth to leather up so she could complete the fine details the next day.
A boy came into the art room the next morning enraged at what he felt was a total injustice and, before I could stop him, slammed his fist down on a piece of canvas cloth lying on the clay cabinet. You guessed it: Carolyn’s Joker. I railed on the student and revealed his handiwork. He felt bad but could do nothing.
When Carolyn came in to class I knew he had already told her. She walked over, pulled back the cloth and looked at it with tears in her eyes. She sat down and stared at it. I left her alone for the period. At the end of the day, she walked in to my room and asked if she could stay and work a little on her clay. I agreed.
She went to work with a vengeance. Channeling all the frustration and disappointment that she had for her crushed piece into creativity, she began again. After about 15 minutes, she began to chatter about how her plans had improved. She worked with a zeal seldom seen in high school students. Two days later, her new and improved piece was on the drying rack. That spring Carolyn’s “Joker” won first place, overall, in the local art show.
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