2025 Workshops & Demos
Our next round of workshops, demonstrations, and artist talks with visiting and local artists begins in February 2025. All our workshops include clay, slips + stains + glazes as needed, and bisque firing of workshop pieces. Learn more below about what’s on offer this spring!
Email us with workshop inquiries and sign-up requests – events@berkeleypottersstudio.org
Workshop registration and payment is completed via your Potters’ Studio account – if you’re not a current Member or Student, please go HERE to create an account.
Introduction to Soda Firing with Josie Rovegno
February 4-12 (see full schedule below)
>> THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL! <<
>> next soda workshop with josie will be in april <<
>> more information and APRIL registration coming mid-february <<
Join this introductory workshop and gain hands-on training in the fundamentals of soda firing!
Josie will train you in safety and care of the kiln and equipment and will guide you in preparing and glazing your bisqueware, making wadding and cone packs, and loading and firing. Each participant will get 1 cubic foot of firing space.
This workshop firing will be at cone 9/10 reduction with oxidation strike and sprayed soda and is good for glazes, raw clay, and flashing slips.
Tuesday, Feb. 4, 5:30–8:30 PM: Introductory lecture
Saturday + Sunday, Feb. 8–9: Prepare work + load and fire the kiln
Wednesday, Feb. 12, 5:30–8:30 PM: Unload, potluck, and discussion
Mugs by Josie Rovegno
To register, email events@berkeleypottersstudio.org
PS Member + PS Student registration OPEN NOW!
General public registration opens Jan. 13. Limited spots available!
Scholarships are available. Email events@berkeleypottersstudio.org for more info
COST: $425 (PS Members & PS Students: $375)
Sculptural + Ornamental Slip-Trailing with Grace Potter
February 22-23, 10 AM–5 PM
Just a few spots left!
>> Email events@berkeleypottersstudio.org to register <<
LEARN HOW TO USE WHITE AND COLORED MID-RANGE CLAYS AND SLIPS TO CREATE DELICATE, DIMENSIONAL SURFACES AND FORMS!
In this two-day workshop, students will learn delicate sculpting methods through unique slip-trailing techniques. With an icing bag and thick clay slip, you can create striking three-dimensional sculptures as well as decorative surfaces. This method of slip-trailing is great for achieving high levels of detail at a small scale. Students will learn several unconventional approaches to working with slip, such as layering to create dimensional form, slip-trailing multiples, and slip-trailing onto plaster bats and/or molds.
Grace Potter (b. 1996, Knoxville, TN) is an artist primarily working with clay based in Mendocino, CA. Grace produces ceramic objects as cultural devices for myth-making. Crafting the material culture for imagined worlds, she references historical forms and personal experiences, specifically focusing on themes of ecology and spiritual inquiry. Grace received her BFA in Ceramics with minors in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder (2018). In addition to an active studio practice, she works as the ceramic technician for Mendocino Community College. Grace is the social media manager (digital storyteller) for the Mendocino Art Center and teaches workshops out of her home studio as well as in the surrounding area.
To register, email events@berkeleypottersstudio.org
PS Member + PS Student and general public registration OPEN NOW!
COST: $345 (PS Members & PS Students: $295)
Low-Fire Soda with Tom Jaszczak
March 7-11 (see full schedule below)
>> THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL! <<
>> EMAIL events@berkeleypottersstudio.org to join waitlist <<
learn how to incorporate poured slip and develop rich surface and illustrative elements on soda-fired pots!
This workshop will focus on a variety of surface solutions using slip and underglazes. We will be making red earthenware slipware and firing in a soda kiln to cone 2, but the techniques demonstrated will be applicable to many firing solutions and temperatures. The workshop will end with some wet clay demonstrations that will use multiple forming techniques.
Tom approaches clay and making with a fearlessness toward failing (failure is learning) and is always rethinking the beauty of material and color.
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Saturday, FEBRUARY 1, 10 AM: Pre-workshop Zoom lecture and demo (live call; will also be recorded) about slip application and decoration techniques.
The focus of this workshop is on firing firm leather-hard work that all participants slip in advance and then continue to develop, decorate, glaze, and fire with Tom in person. All participants will have approximately one cubic foot of shelf space in the soda kiln to fire workshop pieces. Tom will use additional pieces participants finish to demonstrate how to use an electric kiln to achieve atmospheric effects.
The workshop clay is Red Velvet #518 clay by IMCO. One bag of clay is included and can be picked up at The Potters’ Studio after workshop registration and payment.
Friday, March 7, 9 AM – 4 PM: Demos and hands-on work in surface techniques
Saturday, March 8, 10 AM – 5 PM: Demos and hands-on work in decoration and glazing + loading the kiln
Sunday, March 9: Fire the kiln off and spray soda + demo “making atmospheric pots in an electric kiln.”
Tuesday morning, March 11: Unload, potluck, and discussion
Originally from Minnesota, Tom received a BA in Visual Art and a BS in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Bemidji State University. He was a summer resident and a long-term resident at the Archie Bray Foundation. In the fall of 2015 Tom began a 3-year residency with his wife Maggie Jaszczak at the Penland School of Craft. In 2018 Tom and Maggie put down permanent roots in Shafer, MN where they live in a farmhouse and work in a barn style studio. Tom has received several awards and honors including, a Jerome Projects Grant, ECRAC Essential Artist Award, Emerging Artist Award through NCECA, as well as Ceramics Monthly, Lincoln and Lil Street Fellowships through the Archie Bray Foundation and in the summer of 2014, Tom was an Honored Maker at the Maker’s Faire at the White House in Washington D.C under the Obama presidency.
Tom’s current body of work are a range of pots made of red earthenware that explore minimalism and are finished with an experimental surface solution firing to cone 2 in a soda fired atmosphere.
To register, email events@berkeleypottersstudio.org
PS Member + PS Student and general public registration OPEN NOW!
COST: $500 (PS Members & PS Students: $425)
Exploring Layered + Colored Surfaces with Taylor Sijan
April 11–13, 10 AM–5 PM
DIVE INTO COLOR AND TEXTURE USING SLIPS + UNDERGLAZES AND LEARN HOW TO INCORPORATE INCISED + RAISED SURFACE DECORATION AND STENCILS INTO YOUR SURFACE COMPOSITIONS!
Taylor Sijan crafts richly decorated, functional pottery. Each piece is a confluence of things she finds beautiful— asymmetrical compositions, evocative colors, botanical imagery, and fine details—expressed within the parameters of objects intended for active participation in someone’s life.
Work with leather-soft and bone dry pieces and use simple provided tiles to learn and explore the rich variety of techniques Taylor demonstrates. Workshop includes a 25# bag of clay available for pick-up from The Potters’ Studio on registration.
Taylor Sijan is a full-time studio artist from Catawba Island, Ohio. She earned an MFA with ceramics emphasis from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2021). In 2020, Taylor was named one of Ceramics Monthly’s Emerging Artists. She enjoys traveling to teach techniques to students and has demonstrated at institutions including Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft, Peters Valley School of Craft, Gasworks NYC, Saratoga Clay Arts Center, Touchstone Center for Crafts, Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts, Snow Farm, and Hudgens Center for Arts and Learning.
When Taylor’s not in her studio, she’s usually gardening, hiking, or spending time with her two cats.
To register, email events@berkeleypottersstudio.org
PS Member + PS Student advance registration opens Jan. 16
General public registration opens Jan. 23