Freedom Quilt Clay Tiles, 8th grade

The 8th grade students are doing an integrated year of music, technology, art and social studies all within the focus of learning about the civil war.

In art class, we studied about Quilt Codes during the civil war. Some believed that slaves would use "codes" in their quilts that would help other slaves escape. We researched the meanings of the codes and then designed our own quilt blocks on computers. In addition, we also incorporated math into our unit as geometry plays a big part in the design of a quilt and quilt blocks. After we designed our quilt codes and the explained the meaning of them, we carved them into balsa foam to make a relief stamp. We learned about negative and positive space here. Clay slabs were made by each student and students pressed their balsa foam stamps into their slabs. The slabs were then under glazed, fired, then a coat of clear glaze was applied. The results were beautiful. See for yourself!