PINEDALE — Katie Facklam’s ceramics classroom is coordinated chaos this time of year, as dozens of high school students, and even alumni, spend their afternoons hand-throwing, turning and …
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PINEDALE — Katie Facklam’s ceramics classroom is coordinated chaos this time of year, as dozens of high school students, and even alumni, spend their afternoons hand-throwing, turning and creating bowls, mugs and more for the upcoming Souper Bowl. The students have spent weeks preparing at least 80 ceramic and wood-turned pieces for auction at the 4th annual event, planned for Friday, Nov. 22. National Art Honor Society (NAHS) Pinedale President and senior Nicolas Sletten said he hopes the community will come out to help them raise over $12,000 for the Pinedale Angel Wreath Program. “We do this (Souper Bowl) to give back and make the community a better place. This is a way to help out those families who need help with Christmas. There’s so many cool bowls that everyone is making.”
The top-selling bowl at last year’s live auction was created by Graham Harber and went for about $520.
On Nov. 12, Paiyzli Baker, a senior who has been involved with the Souper Bowl for two years, worked on hand painting pine trees with an underglaze. She explained, “I threw this bowl yesterday on the wheel, let it dry and I carved this foot ring about an hour ago. This underglaze is for the first firing and I think I’ll do a blue/green glaze on this top part and have it drip down a little bit. That’ll be once it’s been fired in the kiln for the second time.”
There will be more than just soup bowls at the Souper Bowl. Seniors Avery Hughes and Isabelle Rigo sat at their potter’s wheels on Wednesday, creating ceramic mugs. “I’m thinking of hand-building some Christmas decorations, snowflakes to add to it.”
Hughes and Rigo have each made four pieces for the Souper Bowl, with more planned. “It’s really good cause for our community. We put a lot of good time into these pieces so I think people need to come out and support this fundraiser,” Rigo said.
Hughes noted, “Ceramics is such a great program for our school.”
For the first time, the Souper Bowl will offer wood-turned bowls during the auction. Seniors Garrett Madole and Ryan Nutt have created several such pieces, starting with blocks of wood. Once the block is cut, it’s placed on a lathe and rotated while the students use a variety of tools and instruments to shape the wood, and create carvings and designs.
Asked to choose the most fun aspect of the Souper Bowl, Facklam’s classroom erupted with answers that fell into three categories: giving back to their community, the home-cooked soup donated by community members and local businesses, and hand-building the bowls. Good fun, good food and art for a good cause; these ceramicists may be teenagers, but they know what matters most both inside and outside the classroom.
The NAHS Pinedale members are prepared to run every aspect of next week’s fundraiser. During the NAHS Nov. 12 meeting, the kids finetune everyone’s responsibilities. Elyn Bowers is the event’s MC, Evie Shivers is this year’s Soup Boss, Baker is the auctioneer and several other NAHS students will act as callers during the auction. A team of 15 will help set up the event inside the Lovatt Room at the Pinedale Library and another team will clean up afterward. An all-student PR team has created and distributed posters, social media, and radio content to help spread the word while documenting each piece for a slideshow. One group of students will work the reception area, welcoming attendees to the event. Another group will serve homemade soups, rolls and desserts. Yet another group of students will run and manage all of the technology for the night while a pair of senior boys collect and aggregate all of the data from the sales. The NAHS treasurer will oversee all transactions and financials related to the fundraiser.
“Watching them step up to do all of this is my favorite part. It’s really so special. It’s their hearts that push this event.” Facklam said as she blinked back tears.
“There she goes. I can tell,” Erica Wilson quipped as she applied surface treatment on her leather-hard bowl. Facklam and the rest of her students burst into a fit of laughter. “They know I’m a weeper. I just love them.”
It’s clear they love her, too. As 40-something students select underglazes, load shelves with pieces ready for the kiln, spin potter’s wheels and paint and carve their masterpieces, Facklam offers guidance whenever she’s needed, but her students are all self-motivated, focused on their end goal of producing practical but beautiful handmade art so that other kids are certain to get Christmas presents.
Brooke Noble, who graduated from PHS last year, came back because she wanted to continue contributing to such a good cause.
“Seeing something you made giving other people so much joy is such a good feeling,” Wilson said.
“I love seeing what people are willing to pay for our art. It’s such a good feeling because, ‘I made that,’ but more importantly it’s for charity,” Baker said.
When the Souper Bowl first launched in 2021, it was because the Pinedale Angel Wreath Program had so many families in need and not enough funding, leaving the list unfilled come Christmas. That hasn’t been the case since Facklam’s students started the Souper Bowl. During their first year, Facklam’s students raised more than $8,000 for the community, far surpassing their expectations. In 2022, the kids donated $10,000 to the Angel Wreath Program. Last year, the ceramics students and NAHS Pinedale members raised just over $12,000 for the cause. “We have some amazing supporters and bidding wars each year. There’s nothing about the Souper Bowl that isn’t heartwarming,” Facklam said. “We want to raise enough money so that we can again fulfill all the families’ needs, and also get them vouchers for Christmas meals.”
“There are going to be some really cool bowls here, bring cash and your checkbooks!” Wilson exclaimed.
When asked what he wanted the public to know about the importance of NAHS and the arts in Pinedale, Sletten didn’t hesitate as he gestured around the room, “Look what we can do.”
The 4th Annual Souper Bowl hosted by the NAHS and PHS ceramics classes is Friday, Nov. 22, from 5-8 p.m., at the Pinedale Library's Lovatt Room. The live auction begins at 6:30 p.m. Meals are $15/person, $20/couple and $50 for a family of five or more. The highest bidder of the night will also receive a ceramic 2024 Souper Bowl trophy created by Facklam.
