Yates library displays pottery made by Lyndonville eighth-graders

Photos by Tom Rivers

LYNDONVILLE – This year’s holiday open house at the Yates Community Library will feature student musicians, festive treats and a holiday reading by Orleans County Legislator Lynne Johnson.

The event this Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. also will showcase 30 pieces of pottery created by Lyndonville eighth-graders. They worked with Waterport potter Deborah Wilson and Lyndonville art teacher Doug Michalak to create the jars and bowls.< The pottery has been displayed in the library since Nov. 25. The pieces will be there until Dec. 16. “Everyone has remarked about them,” said Emily Cebula, library director. “We feel it is important to show what our kids can do.”

The pottery pieces were inspired by jars made by Woodland Indians and excavated from archaeological sites near Waterport and Oakfield. The project was made possible through an Artists in the Schools grant distributed by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council.

The most distinctive feature of the historic pots is that they have highly decorated “collars” or necks. Each student had the chance to make their own personalized stamping tool for decorating the collars on their own pieces.

This was the first chance that many of the eighth-graders had to work with clay, as the Art Department has not been able to offer pottery in the past few years. The Artists in the Schools funding allowed the school to get the kiln out of mothballs and paid Wilson to come in the share her knowledge of pottery with the group.

“It’s been a wonderful program,” Cebula said. “The kids are very proud of these.”