Currently she teaches ceramics and painting at Merritt. Her belief is that all students have a crea- tive spirit and her role is to help them believe in it and develop it. Haxton encourages her students to keep a visual notebook that includes pictures that they really like, or objects, like shells, that appeal to them. That way every student has a chance to find out what he or she gravitates to certain colors, lines, cultures or times. Work with clay is tied to technique.
Students have to learn how to do, wheel throwing for example.
But the assignments are very general, Haxton says. Students are asked to make an object 20 inches high that includes the shape of cone, ball or box. The shapes can be cut and assembled in any pro- portion. Teaching painting is different, Haxton said. Instead of me showing them how to do it, students work with the material themselves and then we discuss what they discovered, so the development of technique comes from their explorations.