Description

Back for a second season! The intensive offers ceramicists of all stripes an immersive, intensive community making experience on Ox-Bow’s campus, led by Ceramics School co-founders Henry J.H. Crissman and Virginia Rose Torrence. Tuition for the woodfire includes access to clay, tools, and glaze lab. DATES: Tuesday, October 22 – Saturday, November 2 Includes guided instruction from 10 a.m.–1 p.m. each day with 24-hour studio access FACULTY: Henry J.H. Crissman and Virginia Rose Torrence TUITION COST: $1000 MEALS: This workshop does not include meals; room and board is available for separate purchase. OPTIONAL ROOM AND BOARD COST: $2600 for solo room; $1950 for shared double room; Includes three meals a day. Artists who are staying on campus for the woodfire should plan to arrive on October 21 and depart on November 3, 2024. This intensive workshop will explore the many histories, methods, and potentials of using wood as fuel to heat and transform clay into ceramic. The experience caters to mid-career artists or those with a background in ceramics. Presentations will survey ceramic science, the history and logic of kiln design, and the incredible range of things artists have created with and around wood fired kilns. Demonstrations will include handbuilding and wheel-throwing techniques as well as methods for material experimentation with found ceramic materials and objects, specifically using clay gathered from a nearby beach on Lake Michigan to augment clays and make glazes. Conversations throughout will aim to assist students in finding creative agency with ceramics. The bulk of the class will consist of parallel working on independent projects and culminate in a nearly two-day long firing of Ox-Bow’s 80 cubic foot catenary-arch, wood kiln; a massive group effort will involve loading the kiln and methodically stoking it with wood for the duration of the firing until our desired temperature is reached throughout. We will once-fire the ceramics we make in the workshop and students are also welcome to bring bisqueware. Once cool, the kiln will be unloaded and cleaned, results will be finished and discussed.