Give yourself the gift of time to play and explore clay’s responsive meditative qualities, while learning and expanding your coil-building, pinching and sculpting skills. As a species one of our most ancient desires is to pick up earth, dirt, clay and begin to form something with it. In this 8 week hands-on class we will practice a number of different hand-building and meditation techniques utilizing clay’s natural tendency to regulate our nervous systems and return our attention to the present and to our bodies. All of which supports clay-making by strengthening your intuition, imagination and ability to bring your creative visions into being. Through demonstrations and plenty of time for hands on work, immerse yourself in these meditative, straightforward and flexible processes.

Register thru the Potters’ Studio

“This clay has a majesty which illumines our most timorous efforts. For this reason even our crude expressions have their charm and magic. We do not need to be free of error in order to be in the midst of poetry.”

- M.C. Richards, Centering In Pottery, Poetry and the Person

“My experience is demonstrating that there is an artistic voice in each one of us that is not helped by any comparisons except with our own deepening growth. In each of us there is our pinch pot, as there is our dance, our poem and our song.

-Paulus Berensohn, Findings One’s Way with Clay

Pinching and coiling, two fundamental processes of clay practice, will be the terrain for a hands-on in-person class. A fresh approach to clay basics, we will focus on cultivating your ability to both “listen” and “talk” to clay. Skillsets that heighten your hand and bodies’ ability to be in direct communication with the raw element of earth, clay. By developing your capabilities with these simple foundational processes of molding and building the possibilities for your work will expand. Support will also be offered for you to strengthen consistency in your art practice (practice defined as the regular repetition of an action or activity), taking risks and articulating your vision.

For inspiration and to deepen our understanding of the larger forces at work in art making, we will supplement hands on work with discussion and readings from the writings and practices of M.C. Richards and Paulus Berensohn. M.C. (Mary Caroline) and Paulus are two elders in the US studio pottery movement who explored the intersections of embodiment, art-making, clay practice, poetry and transformation of human consciousness.

The 8-week in person class is open to all levels. No pre-requisites required.

Erin McGuiness’ teaching philosophy explores the body as our most important tool in art making and the creation of objects made by hand as a magical practice. She is an accomplished sculptor whose hand-coiled vessels are loved by the design industry and are in private collections stretching from coast to coast. Her work, along with the beautiful interior projects they are curated into, are featured in Architectural Digest, Interiors Magazine and Traditional Home among other publication.

TO REGISTER - CLICK HERE