News Archives - 2007

Throughout the summer the Cedar-Riverside/Augsburg College Pottery Cooperative led by robert tom, Associate Professor of Art, will be creating a large scale ceramic bas-relief mural that will be installed on the Augsburg campus.

Members of the campus community are invited to join creative forces with the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood during ceramic studio sessions (in Old Main 1) set for Mondays, June 25, July 2, 9, and 16 from 10:30 a.m. to noon. to help create the mural.

During the studio sessions, participants will actually create pieces that will be incorporated into the mural. Attendees are asked to bring a small (no bigger than a fist), hard object that holds significant meaning. These objects will be used to make press molds for inclusion in the design. No prior ceramics experience is necessary.

The idea for the mural was born out of the Cedar-Riverside/Augsburg College Pottery Cooperative collaboration. Tom says: "The mural will juxtapose contemporary and religious symbols and icons from a cross-cultural perspective. Participants from both communities will be asked to bring an object that has significant meaning to them. The objects could represent their thoughts, values, concerns, or even their favorite toy. Each object will then be reproduced a 100 times over by the participants in press molds, fired, and individually mortared in place."

The Cedar-Riverside/Augsburg College Pottery Cooperative began nearly two years ago after tom noticed a distinct divide between Augsburg and the Cedar Ave. community. Conversations with the Cedar Riverside Community School resulted in 5th through 8th graders coming to Augsburg for hands-on pottery workshops with voluntary assistance from students, faculty, and staff.

The original collaboration was both a writing and an art project. Students first wrote about and then drew images that represented the values of their family and compare it with the images that they saw as uniquely American and Minnesotan. These symbols were then incorporated into water-storage shaped pots.

The project is made possible in part through grants from Forecast Public Art and the Minnesota State Arts Board. For more information contact tom at tom@augsburg.edu.

Photo: Two Augsburg students, robert tom, and students from Cedar Riverside Community School.