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Clay Exploration with Kjersti Sletteland 2024

Dates Wednesdays, 24 April – 22 May 2024*
*1 week gap 15 May for drying and firing
Time 10am – 1pm 
Price £200 (£180)

Over four weeks, this course we will take an experimental approach to working with different clays and slips to encourage outcomes like cracks, warping and explosions- things we are often told to avoid when working with ceramics. Practising creative rule breaking we will get unexpected original results that can be manipulated into interesting shapes and textures. We will look deeply into the material itself and explore how we can take advantage of timings, mixing things up and pushing things to breaking point.

This course is suitable for both beginners and people who have worked with clay but perhaps not explored this side of it.

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Description

When you learn ceramics, you are often told what not to do and what to avoid as the outcome can be cracks, warping and explosions. In this course we will be looking at technically “wrong” ways to work with ceramics. By taking an experimental approach, we will provoke some of these accidents. From accidents and failures, we often get new, original results that again can be manipulated into great shapes and textures. The course will introduce different ceramic materials that can be combined in unusual ways, as well as materials which are  included in ceramics less often: Strong and groggy sculpting clays and fine porcelain, fluid clays and slips, stones, sand and wire.

Through the course you will:

  • Combine and explore different types of materials such as hard, fluid clay or clays with contrasting consistencies.
  • Produce a number of small-scale objects or sculptures.
  • Shape different types of clay sculpturally, by cutting with string, rolling, carving, and poking.
  • In the final workshop, you will glaze and manipulate the surface further using stains, slips and waxes to create unique finished ceramic pieces.

All sculptures/vessels produced will remain at ESW and be fired as a group at the end of the course and can be collected the week after the course ends.

This course will take place inside in the North Labs.

Kjersti Sletteland is an artist who works with ceramics and other sculpture materials. She holds an MFA in Sculpture, a BA(hons) in Ceramics and has exhibited internationally and won several awards. Latest projects include Craft Scotland residency Making History, Edinburgh Printmakers Residency for etching and a public commission wall mural in Lærdal, Norway.

Courses are subject to minimum enrolment, so please book as soon as possible, to reduce the likelihood of course cancellation.

Please read our Bookings and Cancellation Policy here.