Teaching in three dimensions

Most afternoons Pam Duncan can be found at the Jars of Clay pottery studio on Broadway, doing what she loves -- throwing.

Throwing, as in pottery.

With a bucket of water, a lump of clay and a wheel Duncan can make a variety of pots, from functional to purely decorative, elaborate and ornate to simple.

As her wheel spins, the simple lump of clay is transformed almost magically into a pot, the walls rising easily from the pressure of Duncan's hands placed inside and outside the fast-forming clay.

Along with glass bead maker Michael Guard, who teaches at the Fusion Glassworks studio that shares the same space at 823 Broadway, Duncan hopes to create a place of artistic learning in crafts with few local teachers.

Classes in painting are readily available from other studios like Judy Barks-Westrich's Artist Studio and the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri.

With some three-dimensional arts like pottery and glass bead making, the choices are few. Duncan said the shortage is why studio owner Linda Bohnsack wanted to make the studio and asked Duncan and Guard to teach.

Bohnsack was unavailable for comment.

For now several new, shiny pottery wheels sit at the studio, waiting for the day when the first eager students decide to try their hand at pottery. Duncan thinks it won't be long before those wheels get to fulfill their purpose.

In her days with the local Rivers Edge Pottery Guild, Duncan said she's met many people interested in the ancient craft of pottery.

"Every time we'd set up a display for the pots, people would say 'How can I learn to do that?'" said Duncan.

Unfortunately for most of those curious potential students, there are few places to go in Cape Girardeau to learn pottery, other than the occasional continued learning class at Southeast Missouri State University.

Pottery, said Duncan, is something almost everyone is familiar with.

"As children, who didn't make mud pies?" Duncan said. "Who didn't take a piece of clay coil and make a snake out of it?"

If there are few chances for people to learn pottery in Cape Girardeau, there are even fewer chances to learn glass bead making.

Guard, a bearded man with the look of a biker and the demeanor of Santa Claus, knows he may be the only person locally offering instruction to the public in bead making.

After starting his classes in December, Guard has already had several students.

Using one of several torches in the studio, Guard shows them how to melt glass rods into beads and decorate them with colored glass and other details. In the studio are racks with beads of all different colors, shapes and sizes.

Some of Guard's favorite things to make are faces, like the google-eyed, orange-haired, big-lipped, tiny monster face bead he proudly displays.

"It's really addictive because it's kind of that Zen thing," said Guard. "You can zone out and just concentrate on this one thing."

The teacher studies computer science at Southeast Missouri State University -- an area of knowledge with little relation to making glass beads.

"This is a whole different side of the brain, and it's very balancing for me that way," Guard says as he makes another bead -- a process that takes only a few minutes.

The beads Guard teaches people how to make are different that stock glass beads found at arts and crafts stores.

"People get glass beads at these shops, but no one knows where they come from," Guard says, chuckling at the joke he's about to make. "They're made by a little 10-year-old Malaysian boy who's doing this for a job, making the same bead over and over all day."

Guard said in making glass beads getting burns is inevitable. For his students learning the art is worth the pain.

Student Margaret Lents calls it "addictive." Lents has painted and quilted, but doesn't get the same kind of satisfaction she does out of making glass beads.

"I've always liked colors and putting colors together, especially with glass, because when you heat it, it changes color and you don't really know what you have until it cools.

"Plus, unlike doing a painting or doing a quilt the results are a little faster. It's that instant satisfaction thing."

Lents said she knew about glass bead making before Guard started at Fusion in December, and that thought about taking classes in St. Louis. Then she met Guard and found she could learn the same skill locally.

Now she continues to use the studio to make her own glass beads, even though she is no longer taking classes.

For Guard Lents' experience is no surprise. He says people are usually show great interest in glass beads. His marketing technique is simple, go out on the town with some beads and hand them out. Conversation soon follows, and sometimes a new students is ensnared.

If you're out this St. Patrick's Day, you may just meet Guard, with shamrock beads in tow, signing up new recruits.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182