Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

This workshop will cover everything you want to know about painting outdoors, and more! This two day workshop will bring participants outside with their paint of choice, geared up, and ready to work. We'll cover finding subjects, tracking light, and all the considerations you need to keep in mind when bringing your studio outside. This popular workshop is a unique opportunity to learn ways of delving more deeply into the complexities of garden and nature to create vibrant memories of summertime once the December snows arrive.

Daniel Lloyd-Miller is a painter concerned with place and working from observation. He carefully chooses places to paint in order to harmonize with and better understand them. This act of delving into and absorbing a special place promotes an intensity of experience. He's currently exploring motifs of ‘visibility’ in addition to acute life-paintings of people on the train and other vignettes. Originally from Vermont, Daniel received his BFA degree from Mass Art, and his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has worked in Japan and France and has exhibited in multiple solo and group shows. Currently, Lloyd-Miller teaches painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Course Fee: $200 + $50 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

The use of locally sourced, or “Wild Clays,” is hugely popular. Unlike commercially produced clays, wild clays can be highly variable and often possess properties that are uncommon, offering significant challenges to the production of studio art. This workshop will systematically demonstrate, step by step, how to characterize and incorporate wild clay into processes that can be duplicated in the studio. This workshop will address the unique properties of wild clay, blending with other raw materials to improve behavior, addressing problems, and frank discussions regarding whether the clay is worth trying to tame. For the first time in a workshop, students will be invited to bring samples of wild clay and have them scientifically analyzed so their local clay can be integrated into a Unity Formula. How exciting is THAT?! Don’t worry if you can’t find clay. This workshop has you covered. Come join us in the Catskills at the eastern terminus of the Ceramics Corridor!

Dr. William Carty retired in 2020 from Alfred University after 27 years as a Ceramic Engineering professor focusing on ceramic processing, traditional ceramics, clay bodies and glazes. He is now a consultant to the ceramic industry, lives in New Hampshire, and still teaches “Ceramic Science for the Artist” in the summer. He is a world-recognized ceramic expert and conducts research and advises graduate students at Alfred University. Dr. Carty is noted for his exceptional, and much appreciated, work providing links between artists and materials science.

Course Fee: $500 + $105 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

The Catskills are alive with nature. Learn to embroider and sculpt those complex buzzy, harbingers of summer. And while we might not want to admit this, bugs are among our most important cousins on this planet. As you know, they do a lot for us. Now let’s do something for them! Students will learn to create wings embroidered on fabric and wire and then sculpt them into an insect body to create a three-dimensional sculpture of the beautiful, sometimes annoying, invertebrate. Students will be taught basic and complex embroidery techniques. There will be fun discussions and demonstrations on how to analyze the subject matter and then create a strategy for sculpting the object. This workshop is perfect for those who want to learn embroidery and for those who want to sculpt.

Deborah Simon’s art focuses on humanity’s discordant relationship with animals. Drawing from her work in veterinary clinics and the Bronx Zoo Exhibition Department, her art examines how people consider, use, and disregard animals. Her sculptures and paintings of animals have been exhibited around the world, most recently a solo show, “Embroidered Morphologies” at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, Illinois, and in “Lagomorph: Rabbits and Hares in Contemporary Craft” at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. “White Rabbit”, a solo window installation was featured at AHA Fine Art in New York City. She has received numerous fellowships including the Chulitna Lodge Creative Summer Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Saint Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab, Sculpture Space, Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program and the Cultural Space Subsidy Program. She has received grants from the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and NYSCA. Following studies at the Repin Institute of Art in Leningrad, USSR, Simon received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and MFA from New York’s School of Visual Arts.

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

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

Learn to transform lusciously soft wool felt into three-dimensional forms. Over three days we will explore various contemporary techniques for creating three dimensional shapes, including wet felting on a resist as well as needle felting. While you might assume that your imagination is the limit, you will enjoy being in a supportive and experimental environment where anything is possible. You will create several small projects as well as at least one garment or vessel. This workshop is a first for Sugar Maples, and we are excited to host you and our incredibly talented Instructor for three days of discussions, demonstrations, and in-depth making of objects pertinent to you.

Renee Baumann is a Catskills-based designer, chef, and nature enthusiast with a passion for wild plants and fungi. Trained as an architect and a chef, she brings a creative, interdisciplinary flair to everything she does—whether she’s crafting baskets from local plants, illustrating mushrooms in watercolor, or whipping up delicious meals from foraged ingredients. Renee teaches workshops and techniques working with local fibers, with an emphasis on creating three dimensional forms from bioregional components. Her work varies from traditional basketry to sculptural felt and spinning foraged fibers. Renee teaches workshops on identifying, cooking with, and even weaving with plants and fungi growing in the Catskills.

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

Some experience is useful

Come join Aysha for a three-day intensive workshop that will emphasize her unique approach to imagined space, scale, and the poetic properties of wheel-thrown and altered clay. Suggestions of terrain, body in motion, and flora will be explored through discussions, demonstrations, and hands-on exercises. Specific features of pots such as rims, feet, lids, volumes and form will be covered during this unique workshop opportunity. Students will be introduced to dynamic techniques for altering freshly thrown forms, expanding on their own conversations with porcelain.

Aysha Peltz received both her BFA and MFA degrees from Alfred University. A gifted teacher, she has led workshops all around the country including at Arrowmont, Alfred University, Haystack, Harvard University, and Kansas City Art Institute. Peltz has lectured at the Shelburne Craft School, Huntingdon Museum of Art, and at Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China. A prolific artist, she has exhibited throughout the United States in both group and solo exhibitions. Aysha’s work is in many collections including AMOCA, the Schein-Joseph International Museum of Ceramic Art, Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, and the Huntingdon Museum of Art. Peltz’ awards include the Walter Gropius Master Award, and Emerging Artist Award from NCECA. Currently Aysha holds a faculty appointment at Bennington College in Vermont.

Course Fee: $300 + $50 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

Concentrating on life-size portrait busts, we will learn to sculpt facial and upper body expressions, depict advanced emotions, and create a narrative. The foundations of academic proportions will be used as a gateway to construct invented figures! Exploring impressionistic gesture and color theory we will underglaze our completed sculptures in the greenware state. Learning the “inside-out” building technique we will endeavor to manipulate the figure from both sides of the clay wall so the artist can express the influence of muscle and bone and skin. Come study with one of the country’s preeminent sculptors.

Arthur Gonzalez is an internationally recognized artist with over 60 solo shows in forty years, including nine in New York. Awards include the Virginia Groot Foundation and a four-time recipient of the National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship. Public collections include the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art in Gifu, Japan and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. His many Artist-in-Residencies include The Tainan National University in Taiwan, The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, and the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, Washington. Gonzalez is a Professor of Art at the California College of the Arts.

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

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

I say, “ALPHABET  SOUP!” You might think, “I ate that just yesterday.” This is important because fonts rule our world now. In the good old days, fonts were the realm of specialists. With computers, we cross paths with endless riffs on fonts. If you’re interested in this weird artistic science of aesthetic living, writing to your grandchildren or whoever, letters can be drawn in many ways. And in this case…YOUR WAY. Cyrus Highsmith’s approach is based on the importance of white space and sensitivity to shapes. It’s a method he applies to type design as well as image-making of all kinds. For Highsmith, it’s a way of seeing the world. This workshop will be a messy, hands-on, and computer-free exploration of us; drawing, making, and thinking about letters. Students will explore techniques involving stencils, mono-printing, and making their own drawing tools. We will venture to say, if you’re an artist working in ANY medium, this workshop in the beautiful Catskills is for you.

Cyrus Highsmith is a letter drawer, teacher, author, and graphic artist. He teaches type design at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He wrote and illustrated the acclaimed primer, “Inside Paragraphs: Typographic Fundamentals.” In 2015, he received the Gerrit Noordzij Prize by the Royal Academy of Art; the Hague, for extraordinary contributions to the fields of type design, typography, and type education. Highsmith’s inventions in typeface design extend to Ford Corporation, Martha Stewart Living, the Wall Street Journal, Men’s Health, Star Wars, and many others. One of Cyrus’ most well-known typefaces are Zocalo, used by the Mexican daily El Universal and the Antenna Series. In 2017, he became Creative Director for Latin Type Development at Morisawa USA.

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

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

In this exciting 2-day introductory workshop, students will be introduced to the now esoteric art of brush making. While in modern times the brush has been relegated to “the oh so familiar,” this object has enjoyed a beautiful and rich history as one of humanity’s most useful tools. Through emphasis on natural materials and traditional techniques, this class will cover materials, binding methods, and several handle and decorative options to make the humble sweeper both highly useful AND exquisitely aesthetic. The woods of these glorious Catskill Mountains make for the perfect starting point learning this ancient craft.

Miles Gracey is a furniture/cabinet/object maker, working primarily in wood. His work explores storytelling, ornamentation, and narratives amongst objects— all predicated on touch. Miles received a BFA in sculpture from Otis College and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Gracey has been in residence at Houston Center for Contemporary Art, the Center for Furniture, and Haystack. His awards include Anderson Ranch, Berkshire Woodworkers Guild, and the Jackie Romine Scholarship at the Krevov School, among others. Miles has participated in numerous important group exhibitions.

Course Fee: $200 + $50 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee