Wet to Bone Dry: Hand-Building at all Stages

This workshop invites students to break free from traditional constraints and explore where and how they can bend the "rules" of clay. The primary focus will be on handbuilding with bone-dry clay, utilizing its unique properties for both construction and embellishment. Students will begin by creating small test pieces to familiarize themselves with this challenging material, experimenting with various attachment strategies and extrusion shapes, before moving on to embellishing and building off larger works. Additional demonstrations will cover techniques for working with wet clay, including hollow-forming through coil and pinch methods, solid sculpting, and surface texture techniques. The skills taught are applicable to both functional and sculptural makers, encouraging students to blur the line between the two and approach clay with greater flexibility.