Workshops
Family Clay Days!
Join us for a clay class the whole family can enjoy. Come for an hour and a half lesson to make your creation, a pot or a sculpture! Each person can keep one piece that we will glaze and fire for you. Additional pieces can be kept for $10 per piece. We will send an email with a door code when the work is ready for pickup, which will be about 4 weeks from the workshop date. Children 6 and under require an adult companion. Workshops can be rescheduled up to one week prior, bookings are non-refundable.
Family Clay Day Hand Building | ages 4+ | Friday June 14, 9:30 - 11 am | $40 per person
Family Clay Day Wheel | ages 8+ | Friday June 28, 9:30 - 11 am | $40 per person
Colored Clay Workshop with Jess
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Learn how to make colored clay! Experience working with clay is required. Learn how to make colorful forms with marbling and nerikomi - a process of stacking and cutting colored pieces of clay to form different patterns. Participants will learn how to color porcelain clay with mason stains. Experience with clay is required. Firing fees are not included in this workshop and are an additional 6 cents per cubic inch which covers both bisque and glaze firing. Non-members can pay firing fees and the studio will glaze their work with a clear gloss glaze, or participants can purchase open studio time to glaze their work after it has been bisqued. This 4 hour workshop includes a 15 minute break.
Cancellation: All sales and bookings are nonrefundable. Workshops can be rescheduled up to 1 week prior.
Smoke and Sawdust Pit Firing with Demetria Chappo
Hosted off-site by Cone Zero Ceramics in Catskill, New York.
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In this one-day workshop, experience the exciting atmospheric process of firing in a sawdust pit and create dramatic surfaces on your pots from carbonization, flashing, and fuming of the smoke and flame. In this interactive community firing, students will learn about the entire process of pit firing starting with building and stacking a kiln to how to seal and care for pots after the firing. A special collection of materials, combustibles, and natural ingredients will be available to you during the workshop to create flashing and fuming on your pots and you will have the opportunity to prepare your bisqued pots for the firing. Demetria will demonstrate and discuss common materials to add into the pit and onto your pots along with techniques and methods to prepare your surfaces and the dramatic results they may yield.
Demetria’s signature pit firing technique draws pots hot from the pit, similar to the raku firing process, in order to impart the effects of carbonization with horsehair, feathers, and other materials. Together we will pull the pieces out of the pit continuing to experiment with surface techniques while we witness and discuss the dramatic results from our community during this firing.
Participants will be able to fire 6-10 bisqued pieces. Pieces should not exceed 6” on any side. Pieces must be bisqued in advance, Most clay bodies can be used - ideal are those that can withstand thermal shock. Flat or very thin work should be avoided. If making beads, please create a holding vessel. Pit-fired wares are for decorative use, are not safe for food, and may not hold water.
All experience levels are welcome.
The exact address (10 minutes away from Cone Zero in Catskill) and additional details on preparing your work before the firing will be emailed to you after booking, in your appointment reminder email.
Pit fired works by Demetria Chappo, pictured above
Cancellation: All sales and bookings are nonrefundable. Ongoing classes, workshops, and events can be rescheduled up to 1 week prior.