Touchstone Center for Crafts
1049 Wharton Furnace Road
Farmington, PA 15437
T: 724.329.1370
T: 800.721.0177
F: 724.329.1371
July 27–31
Double Walled Bowls, Puzzle Jugs, and Teapots without Lids: A Study of Uncommon Wheel Thrown Forms - Registration for this workshop is closed.
Bill Schran
Intermediate–Advanced | $525
Class Time: Monday–Friday
Concentrate on wheel throwing techniques to create uncommon vessels, emphasizing design and process. For example, double-walled vessels allow for carving in the outer wall while maintaining a functional inner wall. Puzzle jugs, developed in Europe, were popular in the seventeenth century-discovering how to drink from this vessel with pierced neck was part of drinking games and parties. Lidless teapots, which were probably named for Lord Cadogan, were produced in England in the 1700s and based on Chinese wine pots. Cadogan teapots are a type of double-walled pot.
The assistant dean of Fine Arts at Northern Virginia Community College, Bill Schran has taught ceramics for 37 years. Internationally known for his development of cone 6 crystalline glazes, Bill has presented his process at the crystalline conference, Cristalls 2013 (LaBisbal, Spain) and at several workshops throughout the United States. Bill has published several articles in national magazines and has been the subject in books on ceramic techniques.
August 3–7 | Family Week*
Everything We Touch, It Touches Us
Yoko Sekino-Bové
All Levels | $525
Class Time: Monday–Friday
The artist’s voice is often constructed with the materials, structures, colors, surfaces, and techniques he or she chooses to use. This workshop is about discovering and developing your voice and telling your stories through clay. Materials, functions, tools, and firing methods are discussed and demonstrations to improve your technical skills are shown. Since ceramic work often presents stories of its own, your creative challenge in this workshop is to establish a conversation with it and discover where that dialogue leads. A mid-range electric kilns is used to complete some projects.
Yoko Sekino-Bové is a potter who lives in Washington, Pennsylvania. She received an MFA in ceramics from the University of Oklahoma before becoming a full-time studio artist. Her porcelain work is exhibited nationally and internationally, including NCECA Invitational Exhibition and GICB International Ceramic Exhibition in South Korea. The Ceramic Arts Daily Council selected her as one of the “Emerging Artists” in 2011, and she completed her residency at John Michael Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin in 2014. Yoko works from her home studio and teaches workshops at craft schools and universities.
August 10–14
Schlumpy Funk Ceramicizing
Kevin Snipes and Laura Jean McLaughlin
All Levels | $600
Class Time: Monday–Friday
Join us for a fun-filled, week-long Schlumpy Funk inspired workshop. The Schlumpy Funk movement has its roots in the Surrealist and Dada movements, and encourages play and spontaneity. Through daily Surrealist games and exercises you will create small cone 6 porcelain sculptures and forms with various hand-building techniques, such as slab, coil, pinch, and glomming. Embellishment techniques such as sgraffito, mishima, painting, and staining will bring narrative life to the three-dimensional forms.
Kevin Snipes was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and mostly grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a full-time wanderer and maker of exquisite objects. His smarts come from the streets, but he also managed to learn a thing or two at a couple of fine educational institutions. He holds a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art (1994) and did graduate work at the University of Florida-Gainesville (2003). From there he participated in several short-term artist residency programs, including the Clay Studio in Philadelphia and the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in New Castle, Maine. He was a visiting artist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and did a two-year residency at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (2008–2010) in Helena, Montana. His most recent residencies (2013) took him to Vallauris, France and to C.R.E.T.A. in Rome, Italy. Kevin currently maintains a studio in Cleveland, Ohio and exhibits both nationally and internationally, including Jingdezhen, China.
Laura Jean McLaughlin received an MFA in ceramics from West Virginia University (WVU). Her work has been exhibited in over one hundred galleries and museums, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Mobile Museum of Art, the Montgomery Museum of Art, the Ohio Craft Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Delf Norona Museum, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, the Baltimore Institute of Art, and the State Museum of Pennsylvania. She is a recipient of the Maggie Milono Memorial award from the Carnegie Museum of Art and three prestigious residencies from the Kohler Company in Wisconsin. Laura Jean’s ceramic work has been featured in various periodicals, including: Germany’s New Ceramics, Korean Ceramic Art Monthly, Ceramics Monthly, Clay Times, American Style, and American Craft Magazine. Her work is featured in the following books:Confrontational Ceramics, 500 Figures, 500 Teapots, 500 Bowls, 500 Cups, and Poetic Expressions of Mortality. She received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to conduct a workshop at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, a Mid-Atlantic grant for a large mosaic installation in Baltimore, as well as a Mid-Atlantic Fellowship at WVU. Her work is in the collection of the City of Pittsburgh, the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Carlow College, Whole Foods Market, the Porter~Price Collection, Kohler Art Center, Kohler Company, and HBO in New York.
August 24–28
New Directions in China Painting
All Levels | $525
Class Time: Monday–Friday
Explore methods of applying and firing china paint on ceramic tile, pottery, and sculpture, whether handmade or commercially manufactured. Although china paint is traditionally mixed with an oil medium, we will use water-soluble mediums exclusively. You will use all kinds of brushes; and stamp, print, spray, and stencil china paints. We will investigate resist and wipeout techniques, traditional shading and ground-laying methods, and a variety of fascinating materials and processes unfamiliar to most ceramic artists. Not only will you produce tiles and other ware of your own design, you will also participate in the decoration of several collaborative murals. Tiles will be fired each night for four nights, and you will leave with finished work.
Author of China Paint and Overglaze as well as the DVD, New Directions in China Painting, Paul Lewing has been president of Washington Potters' Association and Northwest Designer-Craftsmen, and the NCECA Glaze Doctor. With almost 50 years in ceramics, he has completed over 1,000 tile commissions and taught numerous workshops across the United States.
September 4–6
Designing and Making Simple Slip Molds
Seth Payne
Intermediate–Advanced | $345
Class Time: Friday–Monday
Discover ideas and processes around designing and making functional slip cast table and housewares in a studio setting. On the first day, we will use clay to create models for our projects employing techniques you are comfortable with, from wheel throwing to slab and solid forming. And, we will explore other new possibilities for designing and model making*. We will approach designing in conjunction with mold making and start to explore the possibilities of the casting process. On the second day, we will run a plaster intensive while making slip molds for our models. During this process, we will discuss all things plaster, troubleshoot, and learn best practices. On the third day, we will learn about wax casting while making a hot wax cast in our new slip molds. Students will keep this wax cast to be further refined as a new model or used to make future replicas of their slip molds.
*Students are invited to bring greenware models from home to consider for model-just make sure they remain leather-hard!
A ceramic artist for over 15 years, Seth Payne has a MFA from Alfred University. He has worked as an artist-in-residence at Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts and Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, as well as assisting workshops at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. He has also taught as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His work has won awards and been exhibited throughout the United States, and published in Ceramic Monthly and the Lark Books. He currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
September 11–13
Mixed Medium Workshop
Sandy Miller
Beginner | $240
Class Time: Friday–Sunday
Break the rules of traditional craft! Learn to incorporate two or more materials into one seamless form with this introduction to handmade ceramic vessels woven with wire, waxed linen, found objects, seed beads, and so forth. Learn the basic weaving technique of twining and explore the balance between objects that includes handles, rims, and necks. You will spend the weekend creating a take-away work of art.
Primarily self-taught, Sandy Miller has worked in the studio for 28 years, starting life as fiber artist and quickly merging into ceramic art. Years of throwing in the studio, traveling, gardening, and life are present in the work that she current produces. Sandy’s work is exhibited nationally, collected privately, featured on the cover in Clay Times (April 2006) and in several galleries. Learn more about Sandy at www.sandymillerpottery.com
September 18–21
Wood, Clay, Fire
Ian F. Thomas and Von Venhuizen
All Levels | $345
Class Time: Friday–Monday
During this hands-on workshop, we will focus on the firing of Touchstone's two-chamber Naborigama style kiln. We will glaze, load, and fire the kiln in three days. Students will break up in teams and will work with the instructors throughout the entire process of firing the kiln. Additionally, we will be making works in the studio during the firing. Students should bring 15 to 30 mid-sized pieces made from cone 10 clay only.
Trained as a ceramicist and known for his many collaborative endeavors, Ian Thomas works at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The founder of the Culture Laboratory Collective, he has taught numerous workshops from Seattle, Washington to Queens, New York, and is published in Ceramics Art and Perception, Ceramics Now, and seven Lark publications.
Von Venhuizen, who received his MFA from Indiana University-Bloomington in 1996, is currently an associate professor of art and head of the Ceramics Department at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Previously, he was the production manager and education coordinator for Dahlquist Clayworks in Des Moines, Iowa; visiting assistant professor of art at Michigan State University; and spent a summer at Herron School of Art. Von has pieces in permanent university collections, museums, and private collections. He is published in numerous books (e.g., 500 Ceramic Sculptures), and has been in numerous juried exhibitions, as well as solo and two-person shows.
September 25–28
It’s Not All Black and White
Karen Newgard
All Levels | $345
Class Time: Friday–Monday
In this hands-on workshop, we will work on throwing taller, well-balanced pots, focusing on pitchers and vases, plus making the spouts and handles for those forms. Karen will demonstrate techniques for throwing and working with porcelain, share her take on the sgraffito technique, and show other methods of carving decoration. Karen will also discuss how decoration relates to form and how she has built an image vocabulary.
After earning her BFA from Louisiana State University in 1992, Karen Newgard began the Core Student Fellowship program at Penland School of Crafts, and then set up a small studio in Saluda, North Carolina. In 2004 she moved to Asheville where she currently has a studio gallery in the vibrant River Arts District. Karen has taught workshops at Penland School of Crafts and throughout the southeast. Her work has been featured in publications and instructional books and is included in many private and public collections. Learn more about Karen’s work at karennewgardpottery.com.
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