Master of The Art with Kristen Keiffer

July 16-19

10 AM - 4 PM

at The Clay Art Studios

$450 - Members

$550 - Non-Members

Elegant & Ornate: Form & Surface

Our workshop will focus on altering wheel-thrown (or hand-built) forms a little and a lot. We will then embellish those forms with an array of decoration techniques from stamping and slip-trailing to sponging and resists. The result can be functional or sculptural, minimal, or extravagant.  You will leave the workshop with a collection of new skills and the confidence to play and draw from your own influences. You will also take home a grouping of bisqued stamps and pieces showing your explorations for the week.

Demonstrations include throwing, altering and building off the wheel, darting, and a variety of decoration techniques including: slip-trailing, stamp-making, and stamping. We will discuss aesthetics and proportion, timing in clay, idea-generation, progressing one’s own work with learned techniques, and studio ergonomics.

This workshop and its techniques are equally suitable for both throwers and hand-builders.

Basic wheel-throwing and/or hand-building skills necessary.

Find Kristen's website here.

REGISTRATION FORM

Learn fun techniques for making flower pots, chip-dip bowls, cake plates and more. This workshop will also include instruction on various decorative methods with slips and underglazes on green-ware.

Taught by Eve Behar

10am to 3pm with an hour for lunch

$150 for members ($200 for non-members)

Includes materials and bisque firing (glaze firing not included)

Students will learn various techniques for centering and throwing large forms of 10-25 pounds each.  Both bowls and cylinders will be discussed.

Taught by Steve Jones & Jesus Antoshka

10am to 3pm with an hour for lunch

$150 for members ($200 for non-members)

Includes materials and bisque firing (glaze firing not included)

Learn the best techniques for applying glazes to achieve perfect surfaces.  Explore new possibilities for your work.

Taught by Nancy Robbins

10am to 3pm with an hour for lunch

$150 for members ($200 for non-members)

Includes materials and bisque firing (glaze firing not included)

Finding Your Voice in Altered Porcelain

Participants in this intensive workshop will be introduced to ways of examining and putting into form their own ideas and inspirations. Various wheelthrowing, handbuilding, and creativity techniques will be shared through demonstrations and slide lectures. Because this workshop will address your ideas and challenges, there will be heaps of individual attention and exchange. While we will be using porcelain, discussing as many different issues with regard to this amazing material, there will be lots of techniques shared that can also be applied to using stoneware or earthenware claybodies.

Whether wheelthrowing, handbuilding, or a combination of both are your thing, there will also be discussions and demonstrations on surface treatments or decorating that include glazing, sgraffito, underglazes, and slips. Altering glaze to suit your own individual creative needs will be demonstrated.

The workshop will conclude with a group discussion on each participant’s work. Like a brief, but friendly, critique, we will give each artist’s work consideration, engaging with ideas about “where to go next,” and how to make work that more actively or dynamically represents its maker.

Skill Level: Advanced Beginner - Expert

$450 - Guild Members

$550 - Non-members

Bruce received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana and his MFA in Ceramic Sculpture from Alfred University. He has taught at Hunter College and Parsons School of Art and Design [New York City], The School of Art [New Zealand], the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak [Malaysia], and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth [New Bedford].

Dehnert is the recipient of a New Jersey Artist Fellowship Award, and other awards including three time Fletcher Challenge International Ceramics Award winner, the Settlor Prize in Sculpture, and a Carnegie Premier Award for Works on Paper. He was also a finalist in the Robert Wood Johnson International Figurative Competition. His work is held in a number of museums and collections including The Crocker Museum [California], the Yixing Museum of Ceramic Art [China], The New Dowse Museum [New Zealand], The Liling Museum of Ceramic Art [China], The New Museum [New York City], and The White House [Washington, DC].

While his pottery and sculpture have been featured in many books and magazines, Dehnert has also remained active as a writer having had articles published in numerous journals including, Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, and Ceramics: Art and Perception. He has written a number of forewords for exhibition catalogs and books, including “Woodfired Pottery: Susan Beecher.” His bestselling book, “Simon Leach’s Pottery Handbook,” was recently published by Abrams Publishing of New York City. He is currently writing a biography on noted Japanese artist, Takeshi Yasuda.

This year, Bruce was named a Fellow to the International Academy of Ceramics [IAC] and at present is Head of Ceramics at Peters Valley School for Crafts in Layton, New Jersey, USA.

Explore decals, overglazes, lustres and fired gold.  Also learn about low fire re-firing options.  Students should bring glazed pieces and a selection of brushes.  

Includes materials and ^018 firing.

Day 1:

• History of Terra sigillata
• Function
• Demo 2 Methods of making it
• Test for Specific gravity
• Adding color to sig
• Application of sig
• Learn methods of burnishing sig
• Bisque fire

Students should bring small greenware pieces hand built or thrown, the size of a small cup or bowl. Must be bone dry. Moppy brushes, thin plastic either from grocery bags or dry cleaner's plastic.

Day 2: 

• Glaze interior of bisque. Let glaze dry
• Make oxide washes
• Apply oxide washes to sig surfaces, remove excess. Piece can now be glaze fired.
• Demo: slip trailing, carving, stamping
• Setting up a grid for decorating surfaces.

For this demo students should bring leather-hard pieces - they can be of any size or shape, thrown or hand built.  Bring in trailing tools, stamps, carving tools, and textures.

2 day workshops are $100 for members and $150 for non members.