Posted: Thursday, May 5, 2011 12:18 am
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Cody Simpson, a sophomore, works on a textured slap sculpture of a guitar while in class at Maple Mountain High School Tuesday, May 3, 2011. Simpson won one of three top awards at the National Ceramics Art Show with a sculpture of a bobcat made with the same technique. MARK JOHNSTON/Daily Herald .
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Cody Simpson didn't consider himself an artist. He'd never even taken a class. But when his cousins, Parker Peterson and Nik Simpson stayed after school to work on clay pots, the sophomore tagged along.
"Cody came to open studio and he worked really hard," said Brandon Berrett, the ceramics teacher at Maple Mountain High School. "I showed him some techniques with the clay, and he kept trying until he caught on."
Just days before the National K-12 Ceramic Exhibition deadline, Cody Simpson decided to enter. But he didn't have anything portfolio worthy. So, according to his mother, Shelly Simpson, "he came home and threw something together."
"It's called 'throwing slab,'" Berrett said. "You have to throw the pieces at just the right angle, just hard enough so the friction allows them to stay."
The process "took forever," Cody Simpson said, about three days. He converted his parents' home office into a studio. Then, using a technique developed by Berrett, he wrapped a stuffed bobcat in plastic wrap and tape. He covered the whole thing with more than 1,000 tiny pieces of clay.
When the clay was partially dry, he cut the clay and tape off the bobcat mold, reassembled it and fired it in the kiln. The result: a hollow, life-sized work of art that had judges scratching their heads.
"They'd never seen something that big be hollow inside," Berrett said. "People were boggled."
But not as boggled as Cody Simpson's parents when he came home with two awards: the show's overall Artistic Achievement Award and the Bailey Pottery and Ceramic Supply Award.
"We didn't know we had an artsy kid," Shelly Simpson said. "I'm just amazed."
"Just making it into the show is a huge accomplishment," Berrett said. "The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts accepts only 10 pieces per grade level, from all of the submissions in the country. So when we had a student actually accepted into the show, we had to get there."
MMHS students hosted a pottery sale to earn money, then Berrett and five students packed for sunny Florida, where the exhibition was held at the end of April.
"That was the coolest thing," Cody Simpson said, "getting to go somewhere so far away."
"The students came back pretty jazzed," Berrett said. "They'd seen some of the best ceramics pieces in the country, and they got to show their portfolios to all of the colleges at the convention."
After all the buzz, are ceramics in the future for the motorcycle-racing, lawn-mowing Cody Simpson?
"Well, I'd like to get a scholarship," he said. "And I like doing ceramics. But probably not as a job."
He does plan to enter next year's exhibition. Next time, though, he says, it won't be a "last-second thing."
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.Posted in Precollegiate, Spanish-fork on Thursday, May 5, 2011 12:18 am Updated: 6:47 am.
Tags: Spanish Fork, Maple Mountain High School, Ceramic, Competition, Art
