Local artist brings craft of clay to kids

Karen Green Stone didn't always plan to be a potter. In fact, she had no history with clay until she substituted for an art teacher in 1975. Now she teaches "The Science of Art" at the John Waldron Arts Center, 122 S. Walnut St., and creates her functional pottery.\n"What it is is looking at the materials we use as artists and where they come from," Green Stone said about her class. "It's a way to introduce children to the natural world." \nShe teaches her students, ages 8 to 15, by bringing in experts to talk about specific subjects. For instance, she once brought in a geologist to discuss the origins of clay. Her students then created a project with clay they gathered from Lake Monroe.\n"As Maria Montessori (Italy's first female doctor) said, 'What goes through the hand stays in the mind.' We process the clay and essentially have a project on the lesson," Green Stone said.\nGreen Stone recommends to any prospective potters that they just take a class with an open mind and lots of \npatience. \n"My teaching philosophy is the first hundred (tries) don't count, although they really do because you learn what not to do. By the hundredth, you know what to do."\nGreen Stone also helps out at the Soup Bowl Benefit, which will take place Feb. 19 at the Bloomington Convention Center. \n"It is a benefit for the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. I contact potters, and they donate bowls to the benefit," she said. Last year, the benefit raised more than $20,000.\n"Karen has made huge contributions to the Waldron," said Miah Michaelsen, Bloomington Area Arts Council gallery director. "She's been on the board of trustees for the Arts Council and the Arts Center, though she's not now. She was a prime mover and shaker when the BAAC building was converted in the 1990s. She teaches, she helps facilitate outreach classes and overall she is just a very active part of the center. She is also well-thought of in the community and as an artist and teacher. She has the greater good of the community at heart."\nGreen Stone grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and attended Loretta Heights College in Denver. She met her husband as a camp counselor in Pennsylvania. \n"I married my husband, and that's how I came to Bloomington," she said. She and her husband, Rob Stone, an emergency doctor at Bloomington Hospital, have three children together.\nGreen Stone can be reached at grostone@insightbb.com for information on her pottery, her class or the Soup Bowl Benefit.