If you are looking for a creative outlet, and have always been drawn to ceramics, but don’t know where to start, this class is for you! We will have an intimate classroom with only 10 participants, taking place in the 24’ yurt located in the heart of Fogwood Gardens. In this ceramics series, I will be using each week to teach you a variety of preplanned lessons so we can practice different hand building techniques. I will be with you every step of the way from the ball of clay, all the way to the finished, polished piece. Even though we are all going to be building similar pieces, I will provide ideas to make your creations unique to you.
Community ceramics will run for 6 weeks on Tuesdays from at 5:30 to 8:30. Our first session will be on Tuesday June 9th, and our last session will be Tuesday, July 28th. We will build for 5 weeks, and then take a two week break so our pieces can be dry enough to fire. I will bisque everything for you and invite you back to the yurt to glaze for our final class.
Summer in the yurt is the best. Windows open, bugs singing, late sunsets. A comfortable, and inspiring creative sanctuary. The yurt is tucked behind the gardens and has its own driveway. It is mostly a wide open space except for a small bathroom with a composting toilet and a splash sink. We will have a few work benches set up for you all to build on, or if you’re like me, you are welcome to put your board on the floor. There is a full kitchen if you want to bring snacks and refreshments. Tea will be provided!
Here is what I had in mind! Each week when you arrive at class, I will have your projects prepped for you to ensure they are at the right stage to build with. Trying to form wet, floppy clay does not create good results. We will build our pieces in steps, with demonstrations pausing creation time so that there is a little bit of time built into class for pieces to dry. * Although we will be setting our forms in class, I highly encourage you to take your pieces home to fine tune during the week. A lot can happen to ceramic in a week. However, if this doesn’t work for you, we can store your creations in my studio and I will mist them. If they aren’t finished in their allotted weeks, work may start to pile up and lead to overwhelm!
Week 1: June 9
2 Hand built mugs - This unique mug shape is built from 2 cones that are made from slabs. This technique creates cups that are handmade, but with uniformity and a nice size. After our cup bodies are assembled, we will explore the expansive possibilities of handle building. We will cover both classic handles and sculptural handles like the crowd favorite octopus mug!
3 Nesting Plates - While we are building our cups, we will also start some plates! You will each create a set of 3 nesting plates. Making plates requires a lot of waiting time. We will set our plates on some slump molds, and hopefully peel them off by the end of class. Once your plates are done, we will cover trimming and optional surface decorations like sgraffito, leaf pressing, or marbling.
Week 2: June 16
1 Face planter - we will build these using traditional coils and then learn how to sculpt faces onto our pots to give each of them a unique personality. I will have my friend Garth with me as a prototype (the face pot featured above)
Week 3: June 23 (photos coming soon)
2 Ocarinas - Make your own ceramic flute! Each one has it’s own song. We will create these using 2 methods, making a sphere and also building a more organic shape and coring it out.
Week 4: June 30
Figure study - let’s build a body! Imagine a human gesture you’d love to honor and then set on your shelf as a reminder. This could be a whole figure, or just a certain body part. I will be demonstrating my process for building a figure from foots and toes all the way to a head and nose. You can get as detailed or simple as you’d like. You can choose to give your figure a function, like a vase or a candle holder, or you can just have it be a sculpture. This is the portion of class that will be a bit more open ended! Think about the figure you’d like to make before class starts. Check out my moss lady above! She is “waiting.”
Week 5: July 7 (photos coming soon)
Chain Wall Hanging - the process of making ceramic chains is meditative, but very time consuming and involves lots of prep work. We will be making long, draping chain links with various connections to display on your wall. Chains cannot be glazed!
2 WEEK BREAK - where your homework will be to pray to the kiln gods and dream about ceramics.
Week 6: July 28
Glaze day! You can browse my collection of glazes to finish your pieces. I will teach you, to the best of my knowledge, how to avoid glaze catastrophes and get reliable results!
Our classroom is located at 725 Old Stage Road in Arrowsic
My goal with this class is to teach you that ceramics can be relatively simple to achieve if you have access to a kiln (Hi, I am access!). All you need is some tools, a board, and maybe a banding wheel every now and then.
Each participant will get one 25 lb bag of clay (either #75 brown stoneware, or #66 white stoneware)
You will also have access to:
A starter pack of clay tools
A banding wheel
Slab roller if needed
Storing your finished items in my studio
Wooden board to work on
Glaze materials
Bisque, and Glaze firing
Guidance on how to properly pray to the kiln gods
About the teacher: My name is Maria. I have been doing ceramics for decades. I am self taught and specialize in hand building and sculpture. Over the years, I have worked as an apprentice to slow crafted ceramicists and in high production pottery studios. Although I consider myself very experienced in ceramics, it is an absolute black hole of possibility and there is always room to learn more. I have made many cups, plates, bowls, earrings, and figures. My favorite thing about ceramics is that I can make whatever calls to me, and right now it is large vases built out of slab. I enjoy simple glaze finishes, but have also spent a lot of time exploring underglaze, gold luster, and sgraffito. I find a lot of joy in the process of ceramics, and how you can create something imaginative out of a lump of earth. Ceramics is what I do for fun, and to relax. I am so excited to share it with you!
Disclaimer: This class is about learning how to create ceramic pieces. Due to the finicky and truly unpredictable nature of clay, I cannot guarantee that your pieces will come out of the kiln perfect. Although this is the goal, and we will try our best to achieve this. There will be no reimbursement if pieces are cracked, or if glaze does not come out as expected. I promise, every single ceramicist in the world has mourned pieces. It is part of the game. I will, however, provide hugs and advice on how to prevent ceramic fatalities in the future. The success and overall quality of experience you get out of this class will be based on the commitment you are willing to make. We have limited seats and materials are all purchased in advance. Unfortunately, I cannot reimburse you if you are not able to make it to class.
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