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When ceramist David Furman arrive in Peru to carry out the work of his Fulbright Fellowship, his most daunting challenge wasn´t the language barrier. It wasn´t the chaotic 45 - minute bus ride, either, which took him each day from his modest basement apartment to downtown Lima. And it wasn´t the work of the fellowship itself - working with 11- to -15 - year-olds, many of them raised in abject poverty, to create a beatiful tile mural in a low-income community on the outskirts of Lima. When Furman arrived at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, his most pressing concern was that there simply weren´t any work spaces for his students. No functioning potter´s wheels, and even more important, no work tables - and no place to buy them either.

Furman spent the first two months in Lima, teaching college student to create and install two murals on their campus. Then he devoted another two months to helping those students serve as mentors to impoverished children attending middle school. Throughout the fellowship, he imparted his love of the tile - making craft and the pre - Columbian images that grace the art of ancient Peru.

Furman has traveled to Latin America numerous times. As the years have passed, he has become more and more interested in using ceramics to reach students who haven´t been exposed to art. The turning point may have come in the mid - 90´s, when Furman was asked to take part in the Ontario Teen Center, a facility where Pitzer College students and faculty advised students from working-class backgrounds. Furman helped found the Ceramics Project, which provided a space - three days a week, four hours a day - for children to throw pots, work with clay and find their own creative voices. During those years, Furman ricocheted from the solitary environment of creating art to the classroom to the communal existence of the Teen Center, where he worked with kids whose older borthers and sisters were already joining gangs or selling drugs. The surprise, said Furman, was that it was so satisfying.

By 1999, Furman had laid plans for a return to Lima, to create a similar program that inspired college students to introduce art to much younger - and needier - students. The proposal, titled "Building Community Through the Collaborative Art Process", would take him back to the country he loved. Despite his familiarity with the culture, there was an adjustment period for Furman and dozens of colleg students. Furman had three classes totaling 73 students. The burgeoning army of would-be ceramists was assigned to create 420 brightly colored tiles that would form the murals at Bellas Artes, known in English as the National School of Fine Arts. The third month of the fellowship led Furman and his students out of downtown to Montenegro, an impoverished area on the outskirts of Lima. It was there that Furman´s students served as mentors, advising more than 200 middle - school students on a second round of tile-making and mural assembly. The project brought color and a new craft to the children of Fe y Alegría No. 37, a middle school whose name means faith and happiness. With their college-age mentors, the students learned about firing and glazing and painting. Despite their economic disadvantages, the children took and immediate interest. "The outcome, of course, was unbelievably successful", said Furman. "All these students who had never worked with tiles or art or color, given the barrenness of the environment they lived in, just blossomed like flowers. And now the 5-by-22-foot mural is up at the school, in the central courtyard".

He is already laying plans for a return to Lima, where he hopes to carry out another service-learning class. For now, he takes satisfaction from the e-mails he receives describing how the students of Bellas Artes are helping to create more murals in Montenegro and have even headed south to work with children in the fishing community of Pisco.

Adapted from "The Potter´s Clay", by David Zahniser. In "Pitzer", Fall 2000, pp.10-11.
David Furman is a professor of ceramics at Pitzer College. Professor Furman received a Fulbright grant to Peru in 2000.



		Articule about David Furman U.S. grantee
	When ceramist David Furman arrive in Peru to carry out the work of his Fulbright Fellowship, his most daunting challenge wasn´t the language barrier. It wasn´t the chaotic 45 - minute bus ride, either, which took him each day from his modest basement apartment to downtown Lima. And it wasn´t the work of the fellowship itself - working with 11- to -15 - year-olds, many of them raised in abject poverty, to create a beatiful tile mural in a low-income community on the outskirts of Lima. When Furman arrived at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, his most pressing concern was that there simply weren´t any work spaces for his students. No functioning potter´s wheels, and even more important, no work tables - and no place to buy them either. Furman spent the first two months in Lima, teaching college student to create and install two murals on their campus. Then he devoted another two months to helping those students serve as mentors to impoverished children attending middle school. Throughout the fellowship, he imparted his love of the tile - making craft and the pre - Columbian images that grace the art of ancient Peru. Furman has traveled to Latin America numerous times. As the years have passed, he has become more and more interested in using ceramics to reach students who haven´t been exposed to art. The turning point may have come in the mid - 90´s, when Furman was asked to take part in the Ontario Teen Center, a facility where Pitzer College students and faculty advised students from working-class backgrounds. Furman helped found the Ceramics Project, which provided a space - three days a week, four hours a day - for children to throw pots, work with clay and find their own creative voices. During those years, Furman ricocheted from the solitary environment of creating art to the classroom to the communal existence of the Teen Center, where he worked with kids whose older borthers and sisters were already joining gangs or selling drugs. The surprise, said Furman, was that it was so satisfying. By 1999, Furman had laid plans for a return to Lima, to create a similar program that inspired college students to introduce art to much younger - and needier - students. The proposal, titled "Building Community Through the Collaborative Art Process", would take him back to the country he loved. Despite his familiarity with the culture, there was an adjustment period for Furman and dozens of colleg students. Furman had three classes totaling 73 students. The burgeoning army of would-be ceramists was assigned to create 420 brightly colored tiles that would form the murals at Bellas Artes, known in English as the National School of Fine Arts. The third month of the fellowship led Furman and his students out of downtown to Montenegro, an impoverished area on the outskirts of Lima. It was there that Furman´s students served as mentors, advising more than 200 middle - school students on a second round of tile-making and mural assembly. The project brought color and a new craft to the children of Fe y Alegría No. 37, a middle school whose name means faith and happiness. With their college-age mentors, the students learned about firing and glazing and painting. Despite their economic disadvantages, the children took and immediate interest. "The outcome, of course, was unbelievably successful", said Furman. "All these students who had never worked with tiles or art or color, given the barrenness of the environment they lived in, just blossomed like flowers. And now the 5-by-22-foot mural is up at the school, in the central courtyard". He is already laying plans for a return to Lima, where he hopes to carry out another service-learning class. For now, he takes satisfaction from the e-mails he receives describing how the students of Bellas Artes are helping to create more murals in Montenegro and have even headed south to work with children in the fishing community of Pisco. Adapted from "The Potter´s Clay", by David Zahniser. In "Pitzer", Fall 2000, pp.10-11. David Furman is a professor of ceramics at Pitzer College. Professor Furman received a Fulbright grant to Peru in 2000.