This workshop, with New York ceramicist Adam Welch, will be a hands-on introduction to working with clay.

We will focus on learning the fundamentals of the potter’s wheel with projects, group exercises and heaps of individual attention. Become part of one of the world’s great craft traditions!

This workshop explores many aspects of “flash firing” or American raku, including clays, glazes, glaze application, post fired reduction materials and techniques, color development and kilns.

Students will also have the opportunity to experience the differences between Japanese and American raku, multiple firing, resist slips, sandblasting, and other surface revision techniques.

Participants are invited to bring bisque fired pieces to glaze and fire.

This is a workshop for developing a personal language with pottery as a form of expression.

The class will provide instruction of different ways for making pots using both throwing and handbuilding techniques, and firing them in an atmospheric soda kiln.

Ideas and information for surface treatments and firing techniques will be discussed and shared.

Slides of the artist’s work and contemporary ceramics will compliment this hands-on experience.

This workshop will initiate the use of a wide variety of surface texturing tools and techniques through a series of demonstrations and slide talks.

We will develop implements made of clay, plastic, wood and plaster, exploring their placement on wheel thrown and hand built vessels throughout the workshop.

Correct timing for the use of each tool on wet, leather hard and dry clay, as well as placement of pattern and design in ways that enhance the form of the vessel will be emphasized.

Completed pieces will be vapor fired.

An introduction to the concepts of the center piece and still life traditions will serve as a starting point for development and execution of individual work.

Participants will explore composition in reaction to a specific situation or historical work.

Concrete and abstract forms will be explored.

Mixing objects made with various techniques will be encouraged. Participants will work at their own pace and receive individual attention as they develop their own body of work.

In this workshop students will focus on developing a vocabulary of integrated surfaces and forms.

We will make plaster tablets, incise them with images and designs and then learn to construct a variety of forms.

Demonstrations will also include altering & darting, making and using sprigs & stamps for surface embellishment, as well as pattern making for forms.

There will be discussions regarding the development of personal aesthetics, sources (photocopies/books) of decorative imagery and patterns.

A slide lecture on decoration and ornament will be presented.

This workshop will provide both a technical and philosophical approach to working with clay and how it connects us to the earth.

We will explore numerous variations on the pinch method including: creating larger pieces, working intuitively and exploring asymmetrical forms.

Surface applications will include burnishing and working with terra sigillata.

Smaller pieces created by the students will be fired in a slow burning sawdust firing with sulfates and other techniques used to influence the surface.

This workshop will begin with a brief talk about the instructor’s experiences with salt glazing.

Students will make their own pieces that will be dried and bisque fired.

We will cover some slips and glazes suitable for salt firing.

This intensive workshop with one of the world’s foremost experts on salt firing will include demonstrations, ample opportunity for discussions and conclude with a salt firing.

This workshop, by experienced mold maker Jim Chaney, will transport the participant from three dimensional concept to fired ceramic form across a five-day exploration of two-part plaster drain molds.

Solid sculptural clay and modified found objects will be rendered as hollow “sake” bottle forms through the magic of slip casting.

The hand-held scale and sensibility of the “sake” bottle is central to both traditional ceramics production and appreciation. Low-fire clay, glazes, and electric kilns will be utilized.

Human and animal figures have been explored for nearly 30,000 years, beginning with the Venus of Willendorf.

The history of ceramics is particularly rich with examples of the human likeness being used to express cultural and individual experience.

During this workshop, students will be introduced to handbuilding and modeling techniques aimed at achieving human and/or animal forms.

Exploring the potential juxtapositions of material, surface, color and form, the workshop will include demonstrations, lectures and ample individual instruction from this world-class sculptor.

This workshop will provide participants the opportunity to bring their own ideas/issues/challenges, no matter the technique, and work at their own pace.

There will be three days of a wide range of firings including raku, sawdust, electric, soda, and the small, wood-fueled Brodnax Backfire Kiln.

Low temperatures to High, this annual workshop is for the firing junkie or the artist looking to get out of their own studio and into the mad chaos of new ideas, inspirations, and varying approaches.

Participants are encouraged to bring bisque-fired raku/stoneware/porcelain pots or sculptures ready to be fired.

This workshop will involve five days of making pots and/or sculpture for the firing of the anagama kiln and will provide students the rarest of opportunities to study with arguably one of the world’s leading artists working today with this type of wood firing.

Törbjorn’s brief on this workshop is as follows: “Make work, discuss work, fire work. Play, experiment, and try to get the maximum out of the materials and processes.”

Participants are invited to put work into the anagama firing that will follow this workshop.

This workshop will involve the preparation of work for the anagama firing.

The stacking and firing will focus on maximizing all the zones of the kiln.

Come join in firing our kiln with this important Norwegian ceramicist.

Students in this workshop are invited to bring 20-30 pieces of bisque-fired, HIGH temperature stoneware or porcelain.

During this intensive wood-firing workshop, participants will spend the first day decorating and preparing work they bring for the firing.

The following days consist of loading the kiln, firing, cooling, and the excitement of unloading.

It’s ironic that Lynn Munns, one of our favorite instructors here at the Valley and an artist who has worked primarily on wood-firing for 30 years, has never taught the wood-firing workshop.

So come be a part of history-in-the-making!

Students are encouraged to bring 20 bisque-fired works made from HIGH temperature stoneware or porcelain.

In this hands-on workshop we will focus our energy on what a pot can potentially be through a series of exercises designed to develop and quiet the critic.

Readings will be discussed and slide lectures and videos will be shown.

Students will explore decorative techniques on clay including slip application, terra sigillata and scraffitto on leather-hard clays.

Paper resist, stamping and slip trailing will be demonstrated.

Tile will be created that can be used sculpturally, functionally or as part of a mosaic.