Those looking at the pottery displayed in the Summit Center may be surprised to see a new character joining the bowls and vases: a nearly two-foot-tall sculpture of a mythic beast. Senior Jeron Mariani began work on the sculpture, titled “Dragon,” near the beginning of 2012 in a semester-long ceramics class. He built the wings, legs, head, and torso of the creature separately, struggling to keep them balanced.

The project started as an inside joke between Mariani and several friends. “We thought [junior] Aidan Arnold looked like a dragon, so I decided to make a dragon to emulate him,” Mariani said. However, with encouragement from Ceramics

Teacher Bob Jewett and help from several friends, the planned brief project ended up taking the better part of a year, and ultimately Mariani came back early in senior year to complete the project. Others who worked on the project included sophomore Harrison Egly, senior Sid Dicke, and Class of 2012 alum CJ Whitaker.