Art and ceramics classes give students a chance to go out into the world to evaluate and create art forms for gallery reports.

Ceramics teacher Susan Simonds said the purpose of the gallery report is to give students a chance to go beyond the normal classroom assignments and explore different pieces in a new way.

“They get to see something outside the [ceramics room] and examine the greater community of artists,” Simonds said.

Art teacher Gillian Bailey said it helps students grow as artists because seeing art in a greater context and analyzing different kinds of art gives them an access point to their own ideas.

“People can feel uncomfortable going outside their normal realm of experience, but the inspiration from new kinds of artwork really gets them going as artists,” Bailey said.

Simonds said that formal galleries like the Oakland Museum of California or galleries in San Francisco have fantastic artwork that students like to gather their research from. Students also attend street art galleries like First Fridays in Oakland, or CCA student galleries, which give them a chance to examine and think about art created by people closer to their age, Bailey said.

“New artists that aren’t in a book or a normal gallery make it possible to get a different perspective on certain pieces,” Bailey said. “Students get really excited to see the street art style.”

Senior Theo Williamson said gallery reports help him relate what he is doing in class to the art community outside of the high school.

“Gallery reports have helped me excel as an artist by giving me incentive to go out and look at other artists work,” Williamson said.

This quarter ceramics students were offered a special workshop outside of school at the Richmond Art Center in place of a gallery report. Simonds said the workshop used Raku, a special type of firing process. Instead of spending 12 hours firing a ceramics piece, students had their pieces fired at the festival within 30 minutes.

“I allowed this workshop to substitute a gallery report because it’s a very different experience that can not be offered here at school,” Simonds said.

Freshman Mia Arthur said that she thought the festival was much better than doing a gallery report because she got to participate in the making of the art piece instead of just going to an art museum and looking at a ceramics piece.

“I thought the experience was really unique. I liked how I could see the piece being transformed into a different shade and how the end product looked much different than it would have in a kiln,” Arthur said.