Pottery classes create unique mosaic that represents the Bald Eagle Area School District

Rosemarie Cox and her high school art students worked through the last day of class to finish a mosaic that will be installed on the concrete wall near the student parking lot. It will come with help from master thrower Lynn Anne Verbeck who spent time in Cox’s art classes this school year as a pottery guide through the Galaxy: Arts in Education program with Central IU 10. Junior Annie Barnhart said students in Pottery Foundations and Pottery Studio art classes started working on the project since March that allowed them to create an idea that would be turned into a design that depicts all that represents Bald Eagle Area. “I think we look at the eagle wings as a symbol for the graduating class that they’re branching off into adulthood and that high school was just the start of who we become,” Barnhart said. Cox said the hardest part was creating an idea that was spearheaded by the students. They researched tile mosaics and brainstormed ideas earlier in the year that would represent students and the school, and decided to make two eagle wings with an original poem in the middle. It was designed as such so students could take a photo of themselves standing between the wings. The last of the tiles were fired in the kiln on May 26-27, and students glazed them in class on May 29. Each wing is made of 81 clay tile pieces.

After several revisions, the poem, written in collaboration with Cox and students from the Pottery Studio class, says:

Eagle wings
are not made for crawling.
We are meant to
Fly.
We are not bound by our
circumstances
or the status quo.
We are courageous.
We imagine possibilities.
We dream big dreams.
We are explorers.
We are patient with ourselves and others.
We are determined.
We will accomplish remarkable things.
We have wings – we are leaning to use them.
Take notice world. We are ready to take flight.