Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

In this exciting workshop students will learn techniques in watercolor, drawing and collage as they draw inspiration from the beautiful Catskill Mountains landscape. Still life rendering within natural spaces (weather permitting) will be explored so that detailing is learned. There will lots of individual attention so that each artist can apply what they’ve learned to their own unique approach. Subjects include observation of the landscape, still life and figure. Subject matter and projects are flexible and open to each artist’s unique interests and needs. Techniques taught in class will include Plein Air Painting, Watercolor Collage, Wet-in-Wet methods, Masking, Texture making and Layering to create a range of painterly abstract and realistic effects in watercolor on paper. All abilities are welcome.

Hilary Doyle is an artist from Worcester, Massachusetts. Recent solo shows include “Probably a Goddess” at Dinner Gallery in New York City, and “On The Way to the Garden” at Taymour Grahne in London. She has exhibited at Mindy Solomon Gallery, Hesse Flatow, and Monya Rowe Gallery. Her most recent exhibition being a two-person show at Galerie LJ in Paris in 2024, Doyle has received press coverage in Two Coats of Paint, Hyperallergic, Bushwick Daily, and New American Paintings Blog. She has taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, and SUNY Purchase College. She co-founded NYC Crit Club. Doyle was recently co-director at Transmitter Gallery and curates shows independently. Doyle received a MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Currently, Doyle teaches at the College of the Holy Cross.

Course Fee: $400 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Some experience is useful

Pottery as a form of utility and expression has existed for over 10,000 years. Endless iterations have spanned all cultures, and ceramic art embellishes every household in the world. The storage of food and anything else you can think of makes its way into shapes and volumes that are defined by the maker. This workshop will offer discussions, demonstrations, and experimentations with many of the boundless ways we can interpret the concepts and practice of pottery. Cups and bowls form the foundation, the entry point, and from there onward we expand our pottery vocabulary, and hopefully with tireless hours of work and dedication we discover our voice with the material. This workshop will provide a deep dive into the expansive universe of utilitarian pottery. There will be a bisque and cone 10 reduction gas firing.

Doug Peltzman was born in New York City and raised on Long Island. Having a voracious appetite for risk, being a skateboarder and artist, Peltzman has been making pots since 2003 and has been painting and drawing his entire life. Since graduating with his MFA from Penn State in 2010, he established a pottery studio in Shokan, NY. Since that time, he has taught workshops throughout the country, is a founding member of Objective Clay, and is one of the principal creators/organizers of the hyper-successful Hudson Valley Pottery Tour. Doug is the father of three superbly talented and cheerful children, a dedicated husband, and a full-time studio potter.

Course Fee: $500 + $75 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

This workshop is an exploration of color using natural dyes and pigments. Participants will create color from raw materials such as cochineal, malachite, clay, oak gall, and black walnuts, for use in a diverse group of water-based binders, from gum arabic to distemper to egg tempera. We will explore the potentials of color, and how materials carry content through history, context, physical and aesthetic properties. Considerations of the environmental impact of materials will offer a framework for maintaining a sustainable safe painting practice. Participants will create a set of handmade watercolor paints, a color swatch book, and exploratory paintings on paper, textile, and panel.

Patricia Miranda is an artist, curator, educator, and founder of “The Lace Archive,” “The Crit Lab,” and “MAPSpace.” Grants include the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, Arts Westchester, Anonymous Was a Woman Relief Grant, and a NEA grant working with homeless youth. Solo exhibitions include Olin Fine Art Center, 3S Artspace, Jane Street Art Center, and group exhibitions Spartanburg Art Museum, Dunedin Fine Art Center; Lyman Allyn Museum. Recent reviews include Art New England and Brooklyn Rail.

Course Fee: $400 + $50 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner – Advanced

This workshop/demonstration will introduce students to an exciting way of building forms using mold making, slip casting, rearrangement of parts, and technical construction. The instructor will lead participants through various industrial techniques that are then utilized to create artistic responses and complex forms. The use of stains and colorants as additions to clays and slips will be covered through this 3-day long demonstration/workshop. This workshop will feature a collective approach to learning Johns’ vivid new ways of construing and building vessels and forms.

Kyle Johns was born and raised in Chicago. He received a BFA from Southern Illinois University and MFA from Ohio University. Johns has been an artist-in-residence at The International Ceramics Center in Kecskemet, Hungary, the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, and at Kansas State University. He was a Studio Assistant at Arrowmont School for Arts and Crafts and has participated in their Utilitarian Clay symposium. His innovative work has been featured in numerous magazines, national exhibitions, and he is currently an Instructor in Harvard’s Ceramics Program in Cambridge.

Course Fee: $300 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

A three-day generative writing workshop for artists and writers to explore and engage together in a supportive environment. Making notes and lists of the raw materials of our surroundings in the Catskills, we will transform those delving’s into short forms of poetry or prose. Workshop includes in-class prompts, explorations of landscape and objects to inspire new methods of harnessing creativity, and roundtable discussions of student work. The goal of this workshop is to open new doors, draft new beginnings, and return home with writing inspired by our experience together in these fabled mountains. With this beloved instructor, we offer one guarantee: all minds will be opened.

Vince Montague is a maker and a poet. Receiving his Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from NYU in 1989, Montague began publishing short stories in literary magazines including, California Quarterly, Westwind, The Florida Review, Nimrod, and Green Mountain Review. For 20 years, he has taught at colleges and universities throughout the Bay Area and has been an artist-in-residence at Carrizozo AIR, Playa Summer Lake, and Willapa Bay. Montague has been a professional studio artist since 2014, and recently, Latah Books published his memoir, Cracked Pot.

Course Fee: $300 + $30 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

Turn a tree into a basket in this 3-day, beginner-friendly course, where we will learn wood splint basketry. We will begin by exploring different methods of processing various hardwood trees from the northeastern forests, with a deep dive into white oak and white ash processing while also touching on other types of hardwoods suitable for basketry. Using wood that we split together, as well as pre-split wood, we will learn the ins and outs of frame style, wood splint basketry as we weave a beautiful 10" basket together utilizing a white oak frame, and hand split white ash weavers. Some hand strength for weaving these beautiful materials is needed, but friendly assistance is assured.

Amy Krone is an artist living and working in the forests of the Catskill Mountains. Her project, Cambium Lost Arts, is one dedicated to the revival of dying or forgotten practices of traditional craft. Currently, her focus is centered on the practice of hand-split white oak basketry in the Appalachian style—a journey that began in a used bookstore. “Finding meaning in my art through these woods is a gift the land has given me.” Krone’s approach is disciplined, mindful, and exquisitely detailed.

Course Fee: $300 + $250 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Some experience useful

In this workshop we will focus on creating interesting painterly surfaces on ceramic objects by using wax resist, stencils, incising, painting, and drawing using underglazes. We will explore wheel throwing and handbuilding techniques as ways of making functional vessels that provide perfect spaces on which to develop imagery that is unique to you and your experiences in the world. There will be a bisque and glaze firing. Some ceramics experience is preferable.

Matias Braun is a ceramic artist, father, and surfer. Born in Madrid, New Mexico, but raised and residing in Costa Rica, Braun attended the University of Hawai'i at Manoa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics. His work has been displayed nationally and internationally in numerous juried and invitational exhibitions. Matias has been featured in Ceramics Monthly as a contributor to the "Working Potter Issue" edition. This year, Matius’ work was presented in the Demerest Pottery Show’s 50th anniversary exhibition.

Course Fee: $500 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

Incorporating diverse materials and mediums, this workshop encourages play, curiosity and boundary-pushing. Students will create cyanotypes using photographic negatives and specimens found in Nature and be taught how to modify their natural blue tones. The class will work with various papers and fabric and learn different mounting and finishing techniques. The integration of water-based paints and collage will be explored, as well as sculptural considerations for wood panels that can support the work. Simple wood-working techniques using manual and rotary tools will be introduced. Come join us while we learn and work with this beautiful process in the fabled Catskill Mountains!

Annalise Neil lives and works in La Mesa, California. With a BFA in Printmaking from the College of Saint Rose, and a minor in Art History (summa cum laude), she has completed residencies at Playa Summer Lake in Oregon, with Mira Schor through the New York City Crit Club, and an artist residency in Motherhood. Her work has been exhibited nationally at galleries and museums including Field Projects, NYC, The Irvine Fine Arts Center, and The Oceanside Museum of Art. Neil’s work has been featured in publications such as ArtMaze Mag, Colossal, The On Being Project, Emergence Magazine, All She Makes, Resurgence, Ecologist Magazine, and New Visionary Magazine. Her work resides in public and private collections across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Course Fee: $400 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee