By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
With just a few more days left until school vacation, the Medfield Public Library offered teens a relaxing and casual evening of ornament making with polymer clay. With the help of Bri Ozanne, the library’s adult services and technology librarian assistant, the tweens and teens worked on handmade clay creations while making new acquaintances in the library’s craft room.
Each participant spent the evening working on a different creation, including a cat named Sparks holding a ball of yarn, a fox and a hedgehog, a penguin wearing a Santa hat, and a snowman.
Bri Ozanne from the Medfield Public Library offers her experience with ceramics at the teen ornament-making event.
Beginning with a short demonstration from Bri, whose graduate work was in ceramics, the kids learned the basics of polymer clay sculpting before getting the green light to take artistic license with the project.
During the workshop, Bri gave the participants tips on how to sculpt with polymer clay, showing them how simple it is to blend colors, scoring the clay before sticking another piece to it, and how to add tiny eye-hooks to the sculptures to be able to make it into an ornament.
One of the participants laughed hysterically when Bri helped him embed the eye-hook in the clay and it warped his cat’s mouth into a frown.
Thankfully, polymer clay is a forgiving medium and the participant easily returned the cat to its chipper self.
Another teen used pieces of orange, red, and brown clay to make the perfect shade for her miniature fox, which she actually planned to make into a necklace.
Meanwhile, another teen used two colors as well, but did not mix them. Instead, she took a thin piece of purple and a sliver of white clay and twisted them together to create a striped scarf for her festive penguin.
A fifth grader who joined the group carefully rolled out pieces for her snowman, creating an iPhone for it to hold once she added the arms and a carrot nose.
For the young crafters, this was the second workshop utilizing the new maker space, with the first being an embroidery workshop earlier in the fall. Bri was even preparing the same ornament making class for a group of adults that would be held later in the evening.
With the Medfield Public Library’s casual crafting atmosphere, the tweens and teens enjoyed their downtime creating polymer clay sculptures without worrying about the last exams and projects due before winter vacation.
