Some throwing experience useful

Among the many amazing facets of clay is that you can make tools with it. That’s one of the exciting techniques you’ll learn during this 3-day intensive. We’ll make 4 different kinds of clay stamps and then learn how to use them to create dynamic surfaces that are unique to your own ‘voice.’ We’ll also work on different styles of handles and do some fancy glazing. You’ll leave with stamps, glazed pots, bisqued pots and an interesting new approach.

A long-time potter in Pennsylvania, Rich Farrow received a BS degree in Mathematics from Moravian, and his MA in Mathematics from Villanova University. He was a journeyman carpenter for ten years and an analyst mathematician for thirty-four years before pursuing a nearly life-long passion for making pots.

Fee: $425 (Course Fee: $330 + Lab Fee: $55 [includes first bag of clay] + Non-refundable Registration Fee: $40)

All levels welcome

In this workshop, Wooten will demonstrate his glazing and soda firing approaches. Wooten will also discuss a rich variety of soda firing styles and techniques he has observed over the years. We will explore a variety of glazing and decorating techniques that work in tandem with the soda firing process to provide exciting results, with a bit more consistency. In addition, Wooten will demonstrate various wheel-throwing techniques and applicable soda-firing designs for pottery.

Dallas Wooten earned his BFA in Ceramics from Indiana University Southeast and his MFA from Ohio University. Wooten established Wooten Clayworks in 2020, which now resides in Hackettstown, New Jersey where he currently teaches and curates exhibitions and workshops. Recently, Wooten co-founded the Princeton Pottery Festival with Ben Carter and Eric Rempe.

Fee: $670 (Course Fee: $550 + Lab Fee $80 [includes first bag of clay] + Non-refundable Registration Fee: $40)

All levels welcome

For as long as ceramists have engaged in wood-firing, its age-old customs and practices have been examined and evolved. Together we will fire “Julia,” our new Train Kiln, to high temperature and then cool the kiln in reduction in search of iron red surfaces. Students will arrive with bisque wares made with stoneware or iron rich clay-bodies. We will use applied slips and raw clays to maximize deep surface effects. This dynamic workshop will feature demonstrations and discussions about kiln design and firing processes that maximize aesthetic options when using wood as both fuel and partner in the creative process. This is a unique opportunity to study with one of the principal innovators of “reduction cooling”.

Daniel Murphy is a studio artist and professor teaching ceramics at Utah State University. Murphy began using local clays and then built and successfully fired his first wood kiln while pursuing his undergraduate degree. He has built and fired kilns all over the world and continues to discover something new each time he does so. Murphy has a passion for sharing what he has learned from these experiences.

Fee: $760 (Course Fee: $600 + Lab Fee: $120 [includes one bag of stoneware clay] + Non-Refundable Registration Fee: $40)

Skill Level:  Beginner – Advanced

Using clay to create pottery, sculpture, architectural tile and forms, dates back 28,000 years when the paleolithic Venus figurines were sculpted. From magnificent Native American pots to modern tilework, hand-building processes play an important role in artists’ abilities to express their imaginations and traditions through this malleable medium. During this exciting course students will learn a variety of techniques for realizing forms. There will be demonstrations on pinch, coil, and slab, as well as glazing and firing. This is a fun hands-on course!

Fee: $385 (Course Fee: $275 + Lab Fee: $70 [includes first bag of clay] + Non-Refundable Registration Fee: $40)

Skill level: Beginner - Advanced

There are endless reasons why making pottery on the wheel has become so popular. The process puts us in touch with our ‘elemental selves.’ Creating forms with our hands and minds serves our desire to invent and realize our imaginations. The ‘farm to table’s movement has made us more aware of the relationships between locally grown foods and handmade wares. At Sugar Maples we celebrate this relationship by offering this dynamic and meaningful course. Students learn how to prepare clay, make pots, glaze, and fire. Also, because we have a beautiful organic farm right here on campus, you can fill those bowls you make with fresh veggies!

Fee: $385 (Course Fee: $275 + Lab Fee: $70 [includes first bag of clay] + Non-Refundable Registration Fee: $40)

All levels welcome

Nothing could be better for the ways you think about thinking, making, and being an artist, spending the 250th anniversary of the 4th of July with these two renowned and remarkable artists. You will experience fireworks in the studio and over at the Mountain. Learn dynamic problem solving, unique hand-building techniques, and this year, surface development, decoration, painting.

The Gills are both leaders in American ceramics because of their groundbreaking work and abilities to teach, guide, and support others in their own creative quests. Using focused spontaneity and predetermination, both artists exude unique gifts for communicating what a creative process can look like. There will be demonstrations, discussions, hands-on exercises, and heaps of individual attention.

Fee: $710 (Course Fee: $600 + Lab Fee: $70 [includes first bag of clay] + Non-Refundable Registration Fee: $40)

Some throwing experience necessary

Upon arriving at our beautiful studio, roll up your sleeves and get ready to dive into the worlds of the Moon jar and Tsubo jar, both important vanguards of ceramic history. This workshop will be a great opportunity to expand your wheel-throwing skills, achieving spherical forms through technique and shaping strategies. We’ll start with small volumes and find our way to larger sectional throwing/building. Rims, bases, and trimming will be important aspects of our exploration. To top off the week there will be a salt firing that offers students the experience of utilizing glazes that accentuate these voluptuous forms.

Sophie Kang Min Yoon is a first-generation Korean American ceramic artist from Queens, NY. She received her BA in art education with a studio art concentration in ceramics from CUNY Queens College. She has taught art within the NYC public school system and has assisted workshops at numerous studios in the metropolitan area. She has been employed as a ceramic technician, studio manager, and production potter. In 2025 Yoon established Long Island Clay - Ceramics Studio in Huntington, New York.  

Fee: $670 (Course Fee: $550 + Lab Fee: $80 [includes first bag of clay] + Non-Refundable Registration Fee: $40)

All levels welcome

This class will concentrate on combining hand building techniques to construct sculptural pottery forms. Enjoying working with clay will be our central focus in making forms in innovative ways. We will do a glazing intermission in the center day of the course where I will demonstrate my glazing technique and participants will have a chance to try their hand glazing on tiles that we will make at the very onset. Students will be introduced to classic “feeling” forms as well as going farther into more sculptural vessel forms that take into consideration abstraction and tension. Relationships to space, volume, and activated form will be emphasized.

Donna Polseno is a studio ceramic artist living in the mountains of Virginia, as well as in Liguria, Italy. She has maintained two parallel careers in decorative/functional pottery as well as sculpture, which has an emphasis on the figure and “still life”. She is the recipient of two NEA Fellowships. Her work has been shown in various museums and galleries both nationally and internationally. The most recent comprehensive exhibition of her pottery and sculpture was at the Huntington Museum, WV. Donna has taught at many schools including Haystack, Anderson Ranch, Penland School, and La Meridiana in Italy. Donna has been a visiting artist/teacher twice at Jingdezhen University in China. She taught part time for many years at Hollins University, where she created the annual symposium “Women Working With Clay” which she continues to help organize as the Founding Director.

Fee: $655 (Course Fee: $550 + Lab Fee: $65 [includes first bag of clay] + Non-Refundable Registration Fee: $40