Sugar Maples Center for the Creative Arts offers the best equipped studio in the Mountain Top region. This is an opportunity for students with an understanding of processes and studio equipment to work independently on their own. If you’re a potter/sculptor working with clay, come enjoy working at your own pace on your ideas/visions. There will be bisque firings, cone 6 oxidation firings, and participation in one cone 10 soda firing at the conclusion of the course. This unique opportunity is for makers who have a knowledge of the ceramics processes with which they need to continue to develop their ‘voice.’ Additional clay is available for purchase.

Saturdays 12:00-8:00 pm
Sundays 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Wednesdays 8:00am - 8:00pm

Course Fee: $250 + $50 lab fee [includes 25 lbs. clay and firing] + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

This exciting course is for folks who want to learn how to make pots on the potter’s wheel or are interested in continuing to develop skills and knowledge. Students will be taught the A to Z about preparing clay and using tools that are unique to this fascinating process of creating functional pottery. Glazing and firing techniques will be covered. There will be demonstrations, heaps of individual attention, and lots of discussions about ceramics’ rich history. Join us here in the most beautiful ceramics studio in the Catskill region! Sugar Maples is a great place to spend a winter’s day learning new skills and having fun while at it!

*NOTE:  This is a 6 weeks course. There will not be class during Passover and Easter Sundays.

Course Fee: $210 + $40 Lab Fee [includes 25 lbs. clay and firing] + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

Bring your sunscreen because the future is bright. Come fire our new wood kiln with Aarti Manik from the renowned Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicheri, India and Sugar Maples’ own Bruce Dehnert. Whether you’re a neophyte to the wood firing genre, or an expert in your own right, this opportunity to work together towards a beautiful result will engage and inspire you in our gorgeous environment. Participants will bring work for the firing, learn techniques for preparing for a wide range of results on surface, learn to load and fire a wood kiln, and then unload works transformed by this dynamic process. During the cooling of the kiln, there will be demonstrations, hikes into waterfalls, enjoying the environs that the Hudson River School of Painters recognized as being an artist’s heaven, learning about Indian ceramics in the world of wood-firing, and time to do your own work.

A professional photographer, Aarti Manik’s creative journey turned towards clay in 2012 at Dharavi, where she learnt from Hanif Galwani, a 7th generation master potter. In 2014, she joined Golden Bridge Pottery (GBP), a studio established by Deborah Smith and Ray Meeker in Pondicherry, India. Since her early studies there, she has helped to facilitate workshops for Bruce Dehnert, Elena Renker, John Dix, and Nick Schwartz. Aarti has assisted British potters Penny Simpson, Svend Bayer, and Clive Bowen, and her work has been included in many group shows in Jaipur, Montana (U.S), Mumbai, Ahemdabad, Delhi, and Richmond, Virginia (U.S) to name a few. Also in 2024, Aarti presented a highly successful solo exhibition at Centre De Art, Auroville, India. A recipient of the prestigious Multicultural Award at NCECA in 2019, Aarti is currently the Director of Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry which offers an extensive educational, wood-firing, and residency program.

Bruce Dehnert has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana and MFA from Alfred University. He has taught at Hunter College and Parsons School of Art and Design, The School of Art [New Zealand], the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, UMASS Dartmouth, and workshops in New Zealand, China, Japan, Canada, and India. His awards include three Fletcher Challenge International Ceramics Awards, a New Jersey Artist Fellowship, the Settlor Prize in Sculpture, and a Carnegie Premier Award for Works on Paper. His work is held in numerous collections including The Crocker Museum, the Yixing Museum of Ceramic Art, The New Dowse Museum, and The White House [Washington, DC]. Dehnert has written articles for journals including, Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, and Ceramics: Art and Perception and co-authored Simon Leach’s Pottery Handbook for Abrams. He is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and is Head of Ceramics at Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts.

Course Fee: $600 + $110 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Some experience is useful

From the whimsical to the austere, pouring vessels have an outsized place in the pantheon of pottery forms. Using wheel throwing and handbuilding, this intensive workshop will include demonstrations and hands-on work to address creating spouts and handles for all varieties of pottery forms.  Tyler will demonstrate sectional-throwing to increase scale, tips for creating new solutions to age-old questions of how to finish pieces with the additional complexity of appendages, and ways to prepare work for a high-temperature soda firing. Discussions about pottery design, craftsmanship, function, and inspiration will bring new ideas to the table. A soda firing is planned.

Tyler Gulden is a potter from mid-coast Maine. He received a BFA from Alfred University, a MFA from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and has been a studio potter for over 25 years. His pursuits in ceramics have included production pottery experience, residencies at Peters Valley Craft Center and Genessee Pottery, and positions as a studio technician at UMass Dartmouth and studio assistant to Chris Gustin. A passionate advocate for the crafts, Tyler has shared his knowledge and passion as a maker during twelve years as an administrator at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, through many workshops and teaching positions, as well as roles as a member artist and President of the Maine Crafts Association.

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

Instructor TBD

Skill Level: Beginner – Advanced

Using clay to create pottery, sculpture, architectural tile and forms, reaches back as far in time as 28,000 years ago when the paleolithic Venus figurines were sculpted. From the 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 most malleable medium. During this exciting course students will learn a wide variety of processes, tools, and approaches for realizing forms. There will be demonstrations of pinch, coil, and slab techniques as well as glazing and firing. This is a fun hands-on course!

Course Fee: $250 + $65 Lab Fee (includes first bag of clay and firings) + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner – Advanced

There are many reasons why making pottery on the wheel has become so popular. Making pots 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” 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, fun, 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!

Course Fee: $250 + $65 Lab Fee (includes first bag of clay and firings) + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner - Advanced

Come join us for this rare opportunity to study and work with renowned artists Andrea and John Gill. Held in the highest regard, both artists bring contemporary and historical weight to their ideas, dynamic problem solving, and unique construction techniques. This intensive workshop is guaranteed to alter your trajectories in thinking and creating. Andrea and John are both leaders in our field because of their groundbreaking work and profound abilities to teach, guide, and support others in their creative quests. Working with a blend of focused spontaneity and predetermination, both artists exude a unique gift for communicating what that process looks like. There will be demonstrations, discussions, hands-on exercises, and heaps of individual attention.

Andrea Gill received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Recently retired, Andrea was a Professor at Alfred University since 1984. Among her many recognitions, Gill has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Ohio Arts Council. Her works are in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Rhode Island School of Design. She has been featured in many magazines and books. Gill’s work was included in the prestigious White House Collection of American Crafts Exhibition in Washington, DC’s National Museum of American Art in 1995.

John Gill earned his MFA from Alfred University in 1975 and BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1973. A member of the International Academy of Ceramics, John Gill has presented lectures and workshops in the United States and internationally for over 30 years. He presented the keynote address at the Seventh International Ceramic Biennale in Korea in 2013.  His work is held in numerous private and public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Crafts Council in 2014.

Course Fee: $600 + $60 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

Coil-building is a foundational ceramic hand-building process with principles used to make things that encompass pottery, sculpture, and even architecture. The techniques taught will lean heavily on understanding materiality (clay), the sensitivity of touch, and ideas of structure. In this workshop, students will engage all three of these elements; learning how to coil-build an array of forms, volumes, and structures as ceramic sculpture. In this amazing workshop, issues of intention, scale, and exploration of form will be shared.

Ebitenyefa Baralaye is a Detroit-based ceramicist, sculptor, designer, and educator. His work explores cultural, spiritual, and material translations of objects, text, bodies, and symbols interpreted through a diaspora lens and abstracted around the aesthetics of craft and design. He studied at Rhode Island School of Design and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Baralaye has exhibited at David Klein Gallery, Friedman Benda Gallery, and the Korea Ceramic Foundation, among others. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.

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