Timpview student wins national K-12 ceramics competition | News, Sports, Jobs

Although Milla Prokhorov, a senior at Timpview High School, is a nationally award-winning ceramist, she is still a little hesitant to call herself an artist.

At the National K-12 Ceramic Art Show held in Sacramento, Prokhorov’s ceramic piece entitled “Where the Eastern Moon Meets the Western Sun” won him the Ingrid Mahan Foundation Fellowship, the Lucy Roy Award, the Artistic Achievement Award and the Kansas City Art Institute. Senior Fellowship.

Additionally, Prokhorov walked away with the Alfred University Theodore A. Randall Memorial Scholarship, which will cover nearly all of her tuition fees in addition to guaranteeing her enrollment at Alfred University, which has been ranked as the top country’s ceramics program by US News.

“I was just freaking out because things kept moving forward, and I was like ‘holy cow, where does it end,'” Prokhorov said. award was enough, then I got into the national show and I go there and come home with two scholarships to two of my dream schools. … I’m really grateful. It was a truly surreal and incredible experience.

Prokhorov’s first pottery-making experience was in a studio with his class in Suzdal, Russia, a city northeast of Moscow. There she fell in love with this art form and wanted to continue after moving to Utah.

“I was really captivated by it and it’s just kind of in the back of my head,” she said.

For Prokhorov, moving to the Provo area came as a bit of a shock after living in the bustling cities of Manhattan, Moscow and Palo Alto. Like most high school students, she searched for her place at Timpview, but it wasn’t until she discovered the art studio that she felt like she had truly found her place.

“I didn’t really fit in here until I found the studio,” she said. “This wing, the (professional and technical) and artistic wing, is so underrated but I really appreciate it because the teachers here… they work on a teacher’s salary but they really care about their children and of how they do, and how they develop their skills. »

Although his finished pieces have a classic, effortless beauty, according to Prokhorov, his skill at the potter’s wheel did not come easily, but rather with hours of hard work spent in Timpview’s artistic wing.

“I just fell in love with it. It’s not very responsible, but I was there all the time…hours a day; I was so enthralled and motivated to move on,” she said. I wasn’t natural. I had to work for it.”

In his work, Prokhorov is often inspired by everyday things. More recently, it’s the bottles. Similar to his ceramics teacher at Timpview, R. Brent Davison, Prokhorov enjoys creating things with purpose and function, while finding ways to make even the mundane beautiful.

“Over the past month, I’ve been really inspired by the bottle. I worked on creating a form that appeals to the eye, which for me is really, really interesting,” she said. “I get a lot of inspiration from my teacher. … His work is super functional and brings functionality and aesthetics.

According to Davison, the odds of a student as passionate and committed to ceramics as Prokhorov passing through a teacher’s class are one in a million.

“I’ve been teaching in the public school system for about 10 years now,” Davison said. “I’ve had a few other star students but never anyone at this level, and especially at this level of commitment. … It’s hard to find a student who not only loves ceramics but also loves teaching and is a natural teacher.

Prokhorov hopes to attend Alfred University in the fall to continue studying ceramics. She’s excited to be around other ceramic enthusiasts like her, and to a lesser extent, she’s ready to finally live somewhere wetter again.

Ultimately, Prokhorov plans to follow Davison’s shoes and become an art teacher herself.

“I really fell in love with teaching here. He (Davison) always told me that teaching is the best path to mastery,” she said. “I fell in love with it. I have a passion for teaching.

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