Artist Creates Effigy Masks with Students

Robin McBride Scott from Arts for Learning, worked with 5th graders on "Gifts From the Earth: Native American Effigy Pottery" during art class with Miss Olivia Harms on November 5th and 6th.

Each 5th grader created a piece of North American Mississippi-style pottery called an effigy vessel (an object with the form of a human or animal on it). Students learned about the history and culture of the Mississippi Native Peoples and the clay techniques they used. This activity complemented a 5th grade social studies unit of study.

Robin McBride Scott is an award-winning mixed-blood Cherokee artist educator who works in traditional and contemporary Eastern Woodland and Southeastern Woodland Native American art forms. She has been Artist-in-Residence for the Eiteljorg Museum of the American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis and was recently selected to develop a project through the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.