Keene State College senior Erin Tolles made 800 dollars doing something she loves – making art.
“We have to do something for the senior showcase and I was kind of at a loss for what to put in there, I knew I wanted it to be ceramics,” Tolles said. “I went for mugs and I thought it would be fun.”
Tolles arrived at the annual Senior Art & Design Exhibition on April 12 at the Thorne Sagendorph Art Gallery with 64 mugs, a project she called “a mug a day.” According to Tolles, the project originally had 65, but one mug did not make the final cut. However, she left the showcase with only 37 of them left.
“There were 65 days of the semester,” Tolles said. “I would throw five mugs on the wheel and then throughout the week I would carve those mugs and get them ready to be fired…. And then the second firing is for the glaze.”
According to Tolles, each of her 64 mugs was hand-crafted with unique designs.
“There were times that I went into it with an idea of what I wanted it to be like I have one that I carved to look like a whale,” Tolles said. “Then there’s ones that I threw something and I was like, “Well now I need to figure something out…’ That was hard to think of 64 ideas to put on a mug.”
Tolles said her love of ceramics was sparked while studying abroad in Europe.
“I haven’t done anything ceramics-related until I studied abroad in Florence, Italy and I took a ceramics class there and I just fell in love with it,” Tolles said. “I came back here and talked to my art advisor and I was like, ‘Hey, I need to do ceramics please.”
In addition to being a ceramist, Tolles said her sights are set on teaching art in a classroom. She will graduate undergrad with a degree in Studio Art and Elementary Education with a psychology minor. Tolles is set to stay at Keene State to pursue her master’s in Special Education in the fall.
“It’s like an extra-year program, so I’m doing that program before hopefully teaching somewhere after that, potentially as an art teacher,” Tolles said.
Professor of Art Paul McMullan said Tolles’ accomplishment of selling the mugs reflected upon her dedication as an artist.
“She was dedicated, she’s an education major so a lot of her classes we had to work outside of a regular class time,” McMullan said. “Her dedication, working on it, looking for a variety and making each one individual and thinking up new concepts for each mug … She had to do a lot of stuff outside the classroom and come into the evenings on her days when she wasn’t teaching.”
McMullan said Tolles’ work also reflected who she is as a person.
“It’s always nice to think of the artists putting their personal idea into a piece and then the viewer, the buyer, comes along and they pick up on that,” McMullan said. “You get a little bit of Erin in each cup.”
McMullan said he is looking forward to seeing what Tolles accomplishes in the future as an artist and as a teacher.
“Erin’s going to be a great teacher, she’s dedicated and she’s dedicated to making things, she’s dedicated to teaching and her education side,” McMullan said. “So that makes for great teachers.”
Nicole Dumont can be contacted at
ndumont@kscequinox.com
