For this year’s winter activities, Jaime West and her art students embarked on Buc Nation’s first Christmas ornament sales. “We chose to do ornaments because they are a classic design, I hadn’t seen any other organizations around school do ornaments. Since ceramics last a long time we wanted to offer an art style of the season’s item,” West said.

Creating the ornaments was thrilling because the process had many of the same steps as baking cookies. “You roll out the clay just like you would roll out cookie dough. Since they are cookie cutters, we cut them just like cookies, making sure there’s a hole before it dries. Then glazing it a different way than you would normally glaze an icing, because we couldn’t have it front and back like a normal ornament or it wouldn’t stick to the kiln shelf,” West said. The National Art Honor Society put in the specific and intricate details of the ornaments, all the way through the final steps. “The process includes multi-stages for doing clay, specifically for the yearbook ornaments. Which to make 26 of the same, took a good amount of time to make sure they were symmetrically measured.” 

Through the process, it was important to be careful and intentional, because cutting corners can cause the ornaments to not be completely functional. “Double check the students’ work before it’s too dry. We found a few that did not have holes that hadn’t worked after they were fired, making it difficult to be provided as a product,” West said.

Even though there were a few messed up ornaments, senior Isabella Ortega was still in high spirits because it was a first time experience for her. “My favorite process was working with the clay, I’ve never worked with clay before so it’s definitely a new and fun experience figuring out the mistakes, figuring things out and how to make it correct so it doesn’t mess up in the kiln,” Isabella said. Learning through ups and downs helped mold Isabella just like clay. “I definitely was able to expand not only my mediums, but my perspective on art. It not only allowed me to grow as a person, but as an artist.”