Ancestral Knowledge collaborates with Joe's Movement Emporium, another area non-profit, to teach local kids primitive skills. We work with 30+ kids (ages 5-14) every Friday at Joe's teaching ancient arts like primitive pottery. Interestingly, the kids just loved sticking their hands into the wet clay and squeezing it through their fingers.
The first day we brought clay that had been sitting by a warm corn burning stove, the second day the clay had been left out in the cold. Not expecting there experience to differ from the previous session, they had a delayed shock from its cold temperature. It was a treat to see their faces and hear their expressions after their senses kicked in and recognized that something was different.
After a week of letting the moisture leave the pots, we heated them in a fire in the Joe's gravel parking lot. Due to open air fire restrictions inside the beltway we used a barrel to fire the pots in.
We had an initial 90% success rate in firing the pots; not many broke or exploded. However, this success rate reduced to about 50% after handing the fired pots over to their young proud owners, many dropping them in excitement.
Everyone in the program did a great job making pots, beads and figurines.
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