Ancient Clay

Ancient Clay – Five Day Workshop 
I’ve been doing the Ancient Clay workshop longer than any other, having presented my first while still in Grad School at U-Mass in 1987.  I’ve offered this workshop throughout the United States, but recently increasing fire danger in many parts of the country has prevented me from doing this workshop in the summer, especially out west.  After requests from a number of venues, I have come up with a second “fire-safe” version of this workshop.  In the original Ancient Clay workshop that I’ve been offering for decades, we finish up with a blackware bonfiring.  In the new alternate version, the wares are low-fired in an electric kiln, approximating the finish achieved if a bonfire is allowed to burn out naturally, rather than being smothered and buried for the blackware effects.  As an alternative, the workshop can be extended to include an aluminum foil sagger firing in an electric kiln to get blackware.  To find out more about either workshop, click on the links below, and please email me if you need more information or wish to schedule a workshop.

Original Ancient Clay Workshop with Blackware Bonfiring

Alternate Fire-Safe Ancient Clay Workshop without Bonfiring

Below are samples of coil-built blackware vessels I have made as demos during my Ancient Clay workshops. Click on thumbnails to see a larger image.  Once you’ve enlarged the image, scrolling works best with the left and right arrow buttons on a keyboard, or by tapping the left or right edge of the enlarged image on a touch-screen.

The following is a series of images from a blackware bonfiring conducted in the Yuko En Japanese Garden in Georgetown, KY during an Ancient Clay workshop at Georgetown College.