Introducing students to the arts

Denisse Segura had wanted to try pottery for a long time, and the senior at John Burroughs High School got her opportunity under a tent on the school’s quad Wednesday.

In about 10 minutes, with the help of instructor Michael Hirsch, the 17-year-old had shaped a short vase on a spinning pottery wheel. Her hands, arms and even her feet were covered in a thin layer of wet clay, but Denisse, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “smile” across the front, was beaming.

“I just came and I got my hands dirty,” Denisse said as her friend Zoe Millett, 17, also a senior, sat down to begin shaping a cereal bowl with Hirsch’s help.

The mini workshop, where Hirsch gave down-and-dirty, one-on-one instruction in basic pottery techniques — centering and opening the clay, throwing the walls and shaping them — was part of a Burroughs High “Art for All” event, which introduced students to arts activities available at the school and in the community.

“The idea this year is to offer the students a chance to experience a workshop of something they’re interested in, or something they aspire to, or just something they’re curious about,” said Lisa Dyson, art chair of the PTSA at Burroughs High.

Hirsch, who teaches pottery at the Burbank Creative Arts Center, said he thinks it’s important for students to be exposed to the arts because they get fewer opportunities nowadays to learn the hand-eye coordination skills that activities such as pottery require.

Hirsch was only one of the community artists at the two-hour event in the school’s courtyard. At nearby tents, students crowded around Hollywood special effects and make-up artists, storytellers, voice-over artists, photographers and storyboard artists.

Student clubs and arts electives also hosted workshops and activities, including improv-comedy skits, a poetry slam and singing lessons.

Not far from Denisse, a couple of her peers wielding socket wrenches raced to remove and replace the spark plugs in a pair of cylinder heads.

“Take your time, but do it right,” Burroughs High teacher David Vezina said as he oversaw the competition, ready to reward the winner with a Starburst candy. “If you don’t start it by hand, you will strip it.”

Nearby, shop teacher John Benne helped guide a student as she cut a small heart design out of a piece of quarter-inch plywood. By the end of the event, Benne said he had helped around 40 students at the task.

At similar events in years past, he would have just shown them a finished piece of furniture students had made in his class. However, this year his focus was on letting the teens actually make something.

“This way they know if they like it before they take my class,” Benne said.

Assistant Principal Matt Chambers said he hoped the event gave students a flavor of the classes and clubs available at Burroughs High, while the community artists introduced them to potential art-related careers and other opportunities outside school.

“The whole goal is to engage students and to get them hands-on,” Chambers said. “We want kids actually touching things, doing things.”

Chambers said this is the first year the event has featured hands-on experiences.

“It’s like a playground out there,” he said.

The idea came after last year’s event, when most of the arts displays were of the show-and-tell variety, which Chambers said didn’t seem to excite the students. But, when the pottery artists last year actually let students throw their own pots, it became a hit.

“The kids were jazzed,” Chambers said.

At Hirsch’s tent Wednesday, as Zoe finished her bowl, Hirsch told her he would glaze it with her favorite colors — blue and green. Leanna Harrison, an adult student in Hirsch’s pottery class who was helping at the event, handed Zoe and Denisse a city of Burbank recreation guide and pointed them to the page that lists pottery classes.

“I loved it,” Zoe said. “I’m going to try to join a Wednesday class.”