By Karen Gutierrez
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Sonya Linder is bowled over. Her classroom at River Ridge Elementary School in Villa Hills is filled with bowls. So is the room across the hall. During breaks, Linder rotates bowls through a kiln. At home, she dreams about them.

This is what happens when art teachers think big.

Charlotte Kuhlman, 9, right, a fourth grade student in the art class of teacher Sonya Linder at River Ridge Elementary School in Villa Hills, Ky. gets a little help from her mom, Elizabeth Kuhlman, as they make a paper bowl at the school. (Gary Landers photo)

"She's probably pretty stressed," 9-year-old Luke Shaffer says. "She goes to and fro."

For the third year in a row, Linder is supervising a schoolwide art project at River Ridge. This time, students are making nearly 800 bowls - out of papier-mache, clay, fiber coils and homemade paper.

On June 3, at a dinner and show expected to draw 600 people, the brightly colored pieces will be sold to raise money for a food pantry at the school's family resource center.

That's not all. The artwork of Vincent Van Gogh is one of the school's themes this year, so River Ridge volunteers are helping assemble a life-sized recreation of the painting "Bedroom at Arles." It will be unveiled at the show, along with shoebox-sized replicas made by students.

Linder believes in finishing the year with a flourish. She also may be the first elementary teacher to tackle the charity project known as "Empty Bowls Feed the Hungry."

The idea - serving a mock soup-kitchen dinner in ceramic bowls that are then sold - has been adopted by various high schools around the country.

"On the elementary level, they don't have a lot of opportunities to do community service," says Linder, who received a $1,000 grant from the Greater Cincinnati Arts Foundation to create the bowls.

"It's just a really good life lesson for all the children," Principal Kathy Brown says.

And also a tough one. Not the giving-back part - students love that - but the part about making something cool that you don't necessarily get to keep.

Calogero Parker, 8, has decided to buy his own bowl for, he says, 50 bucks.

Ashton Bingman, 10, thinks maybe the school should ask student permission first. Then again, "It's kind of a compliment if they want to buy it," she says.

Luke also hates to part with his bowl. He consoles himself with this: If he has to be a sellout, at least it's for a good cause.

Van Gogh would approve, he says.

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E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com