Members of the student Ceramics-Keramos Society are making colorful, 6-by-6 inch tiles featuring images of Maryland culture and nature to display on campus. 

The students, including some who take ceramics classes, are designing artwork for their tiles, showing Maryland icons like the State House, an anchor, a crab, or their favorite flower or animal.

When all of the tiles are finished at the end of the spring semester, the group will combine them into a single piece of art. 

The tile project “will give everyone their own creative expression while also having something that can make it a little more cohesive,” club adviser Sara Prigodich said. 

Prigodich, a ceramics professor, said the club introduced the group project this year for members and students who are not enrolled in ceramics classes.

Approximately eight students, who purchased their own materials, are contributing tiles to the project.

“Not all of us have taken ceramics and some of us just haven’t taken ceramics for a little while or don’t have time for that in our schedule right now,” club Vice President Will Mumford, a third-year transfer studies student, said. “We just thought it would be really nice to be able to, like, do ceramics at ceramics club instead of just talking about things or … having artists to visit and do demonstrations.”

Prigodich said the project is “exciting.”

“I’m just excited that … the students are excited and they’re willing to put the time and the research in,” Prigodich said. “I think that it’s really nice to see them taking some ownership over the project and wanting to … work together and see where it goes.”

Club President Holly Mitchell was the first to complete a tile. It features an image of a turkey vulture with vines and berries. The turkey vulture is native to Maryland and is the state’s largest bird of prey.

“I just love turkey vultures for some reason and I just respect them so much,” Mitchell said. “I also added the vine, which is a native vine that grows in my backyard. … I remember being younger and mashing up the berries and turning them into goop or weird, probably-not-safe makeup. … That’s just kind of like a homey thing.”