Saturday, May 2 · 1–4:30pm
$90 (work trade options available)
Learn how to make ceramics from clay gathered directly from the land.
In this hands-on, outdoor workshop, we’ll work with wild clay sourced from the property—beginning with a short walk down to the creek, where we’ll dig a beautiful blue-gray clay from a natural vein. From there, we’ll move through the full process of transforming raw earth into a workable ceramic material.
Together, we’ll cover how to identify and locate wild clay in the landscape, as well as practical methods for processing—slaking, screening, and refining clay for use in functional pottery. Participants will have the chance to work directly with both freshly dug as well as processed material, making small experimental pieces that explore the unique qualities of wild clay: its texture, variability, and limits.
Rather than treating those limits as problems to fix, we’ll approach them as collaborators in the making process—allowing the material itself to guide form, surface, and outcome. We’ll also discuss simple testing methods and ways to adjust wild clay bodies to suit different firing temperatures and functional needs.
Throughout the workshop, we’ll touch on broader questions around material sourcing, including the environmental and ethical considerations of harvesting clay locally versus purchasing commercially processed materials.
Participants are encouraged to bring clay from home if they’d like to share or test it.
Firing:
Participants who would like their pieces fired can opt into a $30 firing fee. Finished work will be available for pickup at a later date.
Please note:
This is an outdoor workshop. Accessing the clay site requires stepping down a small embankment and walking through a shallow creek. Please wear appropriate footwear and be prepared to get a little muddy.
ASH & EARTH: INTUITIVE GLAZE MAKING WITH NATURAL MATERIALS
Sunday, May 3 · 1–4:30pm
$90
Explore an intuitive, material-led approach to glaze making using natural materials gathered from the landscape.
In this hands-on workshop, we’ll work with ash, clay, and locally sourced minerals to create ceramic glazes that embrace variation, unpredictability, and discovery. We’ll use simple measurements and take notes as we mix, building glazes that can be repeated and adjusted over time, while keeping the process approachable and responsive rather than highly systematized.
We’ll start with a simple, beginner-friendly overview of what makes up a glaze, then move into working directly with raw materials: handling plant ash, wild clay, and mineral sources, and learning how to process and combine them for use on ceramic surfaces.
The workshop will function as a kind of shared, informal laboratory—each participant contributing different materials, questions, and outcomes. As we mix and apply glazes, we’ll observe how small shifts—differences in ash, proportions, or application—can lead to dramatically different surfaces, building a collective understanding through comparison and experimentation.
While these approaches have much to offer those firing in atmospheric or reduction environments, they can be especially powerful for artists working in electric kilns—opening up ways to achieve more varied, responsive, and “alive” surfaces within an oxidation firing.
This approach emphasizes observation over control, and experimentation over certainty. Instead of aiming for a specific, repeatable result, we’ll explore what happens when we allow the materials themselves to lead—treating unpredictability not as a flaw, but as a generative part of the process.
We’ll also discuss how working with locally gathered materials can carry meaning into the finished work, embedding traces of landscape, ecology, and transformation into the surface of a piece.
Participants are encouraged to bring materials from home—rocks, clay, ash, or plant matter—to share, test, or incorporate into our collective experiments.
Post-firing:
Participants can either take home their tiles to fire in their own kilns or opt to return at a later date to see the results and discuss.
Please note:
This workshop will take place outdoors. Please dress comfortably and be prepared to work with raw, sometimes dusty materials.
Get in touch with a question.
Send me a message and I’ll answer any questions you have.
Past Workshops
Turkey Wing Hand Brooms
Sunday 11/16 2-4pm
This workshop will be held at Birdfoot in Burnsville, NC
In this two hour workshop we’ll learn how to make traditional Appalachian turkey wing hand brooms using broomcorn and tampico fiber. Participants will leave with brooms of their own!
Materials are provided and included in the workshop fee.
Wild Clay and Brushmaking Workshop
Saturday 8/30 1-5 & Saturday 9/6 1-5
Downtown Burnsville, NC
In this 2 day workshop you will learn how to forage wild clay and make your own ceramic brushes using broomcorn and tampico fiber.
During the first Saturday we will go down to the creek on the property and dig a beautiful blue-gray clay. Together we’ll go through the steps to process wild clay for making functional pottery, and talk through how to find clay in the wild and how to test its properties. Using the wild clay we dig, we’ll make brush handles. On the second Saturday, we’ll finish our fired clay brushes using broomcorn and tampico fiber.
Please note that this is an outdoor workshop. The creek where we will dig clay requires a willingness to hop down an embankment and walk across a shallow creek. Please dress accordingly if you’d like to take part in this activity (optional).