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Going green
Photo
Colleen Boyle of Youngstown cuts out a leaf she has pressed into clay that will be a decoration on her “green man” wall hanging. Boyle was among students who attended a workshop Tuesday at the D.D. and Velma Davis Education & Visitor Center at Mill Creek MetroParks.
By LINDA M. LINONIS
youngstown
Lynn Cardwell’s students spent the eve of the summer solstice being inspired by the beauty of nature to create a “green man” wall hanging.
The class Tuesday was at the D.D. and Velma Davis Education & Visitor Center at Fellows Riverside Gardens of Mill Creek MetroParks.
“The ‘green man’ is a tradition in many cultures,” Cardwell said. “Churches in Europe often have a decoration that is a green man. It is a symbol of new growth.”
Cardwell instructed her students, all women, to roll out a slab of stoneware clay, somewhat like pie dough. That piece of clay was placed on a mask covered with a plastic bag, and the basic form was molded in the shape of a face. Extra clay was used to build up lips, nose and eyebrows.
Rolling out other pieces of clay, the women pressed various leaves with prominent veins including tomato, oak and hydrangea, into the clay then cut out the leaf forms. Those leaves were used to create ears, hair and mustaches. The back of the leaves were “scored” with a knife and wetter “clay glue” brushed on. Then the leaves were applied to the face.
Cardwell will take the students’ clay projects, let them dry, and fire them to bisque then glaze and fire again. The finished faces will be ready in a few weeks. The garden art will add a touch of whimsy to their homes, yards, fences, porches or sun rooms.
Cardwell, a full-time potter since 1992, teaches classes at the Davis Family YMCA in Boardman and at Mill Creek. She has an in-house studio at her home in Boardman and has instructed “green man” workshops at the park for about eight years.
Her students let creativity take its course to individualize each face.
Colleen Boyle of Youngstown signed up for the class to “do something for myself.” She said she wanted to make something for her garden. “The world is so high-tech, this gets you back to nature,” she said.
Kit Quigley traveled from Avon Lake, near Lake Erie, to attend. She’s made other “green men”; two are planters. The current one has a sea theme with a squid, shells and starfish decorating the face.
Becky Tennant of Canfield has attended multiple classes taught by Cardwell; the “green man” is her favorite. “You can hardly believe you made it,” she said.
Tennant, a gardener, used veiny tomato leaves to achieve the effect she wanted. “It’s interesting how the face morphs into what it wants to be,” she said. “You see the beauty of the leaves and the detail.”
Sisters Gina Buonavolonta of Canfield and Kim Noday of Boardman took the class for the third time. “It gets you out of the house and it’s therapy,” Buonavolonta said.
Noday made three smaller “green men” with the theme “hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.” She planned to use a leaf to cover up each of the senses mentioned. As she worked on one, she used acorns for eyebrows.
The wall hanging, measuring about 12 inches across, makes a statement as garden art. A spring-theme green man might have hair of worms, and leaves of different shapes might adorn an autumn green man. For summer, strawberries may be molded from clay as accents.