TEAPOT DESIGNS—Students Jacqueline Phillips and Tiffany Kupner and parent Melinda Kupner look over some of the contest entries.

Students honored for their teapot creativity

More than 200 teapots were entered this year in a student teapot competition, which was held by the Sparta Teapot Museum of Craft and Design. Students from all four county schools took part in the competition.

The contest was coordinated through local art teachers, who in turn chose the classes that would participate. Participating teachers countywide included Donna Link, Elizabeth Davis, Kathi Vaughan and Taylor Strode. Students in grades four through 12 took part and created teapots for exhibition beginning March 11. Students could enter either one teapot or multiple entries.

The judge for the event was Mary Douglas, who is the curator of the Kamm Teapot Foundation Collection.

The students were honored during a special reception on March 18 and their teapot creations remained on display through March 28.

Nicole Dawson of Alleghany High School took best in show for her four teapots, which included two clay pots, one paper and a series of five graphic images.

Teapot museum Director Cynthia Grant said, "Her work was chosen because of her artistic range, her technical expertise and her exceptional ability for a high school art student."

About one-fourth of the students' clay teapots were destroyed in the kiln, said Grant. "Not only were they expressing their creativity, but they learned technical skills, including the fact that not every creation makes it through the kiln," Grant added.

Some of the students used the broken clay pots to make other creations, including one who turned a truck teapot into a flag. Amy Baker, also of Alleghany High School, took second place for her work in balloons and plaster entitled, "Bubbles." Garrison Wagoner, an eighth grader at Sparta School, took third place.