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Everybody Must Get Stonewared

with Doug Peltzman

Next session: August 15th to 19th, 2025

$615 More Info

Skill Level: Some experience is useful

Pottery as a form of utility and expression has existed for over 10,000 years. Endless iterations have spanned all cultures, and ceramic art embellishes every household in the world. The storage of food and anything else you can think of makes its way into shapes and volumes that are defined by the maker. This workshop will offer discussions, demonstrations, and experimentations with many of the boundless ways we can interpret the concepts and practice of pottery. Cups and bowls form the foundation, the entry point, and from there onward we expand our pottery vocabulary, and hopefully with tireless hours of work and dedication we discover our voice with the material. This workshop will provide a deep dive into the expansive universe of utilitarian pottery. There will be a bisque and cone 10 reduction gas firing.

Doug Peltzman was born in New York City and raised on Long Island. Having a voracious appetite for risk, being a skateboarder and artist, Peltzman has been making pots since 2003 and has been painting and drawing his entire life. Since graduating with his MFA from Penn State in 2010, he established a pottery studio in Shokan, NY. Since that time, he has taught workshops throughout the country, is a founding member of Objective Clay, and is one of the principal creators/organizers of the hyper-successful Hudson Valley Pottery Tour. Doug is the father of three superbly talented and cheerful children, a dedicated husband, and a full-time studio potter.

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

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Stories Around the Table: Ceramic Surface Design on Handbuilt Pots

with Sue Tirrell

Next session: August 8th to 12th, 2025

$620 More Info

Beginner - Advanced

Explore the connection between form, narrative and surface design by drawing, painting and carving on leather-hard clay. Bring a sketchbook of your favorite source material and be ready to incorporate old and new influences to create a library of imagery that is uniquely yours. Participants will be guided in the process of distilling these ideas into dynamic, colorful surface design; giving individual stories universal appeal. This workshop is appropriate for makers of all levels. Participants should be comfortable constructing simple vessel forms or tile—hand-built and/or wheel-thrown—to be decorated in the leather-hard state using sgraffitto and painting techniques.

Sue Tirrell was born and raised in Red Lodge, Montana. Receiving an AA degree from Cottey College and BFA from Alfred University, Sue’s work draws inspiration from life-long experiences in the American West. She is passionate about folk art, vintage kitsch, and western art and culture. Tirrell has exhibited widely in the United States as well as Canada and Australia. A former Resident Artist at the Archie Bray Foundation, she has taught workshops across the US and Canada in community art centers, college classrooms, retirement homes, and one-room schoolhouses. She currently makes her home and studio on the banks of the Yellowstone River.

Course Fee: $500 + $80 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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Weekly Wheel Throwing Pottery

with Meredith Kunhardt

Next session: June 18th to August 20th, 2025

$355 More Info

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

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Thinking With Your Hands: Dazzling Font Design

with Cyrus Highsmith

Next session: July 25th to 27th, 2025

$370 More Info

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

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Five Days with Adjectives

with Andrea and John Gill

Next session: June 20th to 24th, 2025

$700 More Info

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

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Throwing for Volume: Deep Breaths

with Harry Kunhardt

Next session: August 1st to 3rd, 2025

$370 More Info

Skill Level: Some experience will be useful

This is an intensive workshop for the potter who wants to gain the ‘chops’ necessary for throwing larger pots with greater volume. We will focus primarily on functional forms like pitchers, casseroles, jars, and bottles as forms with which to explore more advanced wheel throwing techniques. There will be discussions about shapes and forming, demonstrations of clay preparation and throwing large, and trimming/finishing. Attention will be given to the parts of pots that provide generous containment of space, and those parts that help to define or accentuate. Also, a range of types of appendages, like handles, spouts, and lids will be explored. Participants will get heaps of hands-on time, exercises for keeping the focus, and the always important individual attention. Come join us for this first-time hyper-focus workshop in our beautiful studio!

Harry Kunhardt received a BA in Philosophy with an Art History Minor from Skidmore College. A professional production potter, Kunhardt has produced work for Jono Pandolfi and Brad Lail, and makes commissioned works as an important part of his living as a studio potter. Harry has deep experience in wood-firing and has been on firing crews for many potters including Jack Troy, Susan Beecher, Pascal Chmelar, William Baker/Joy Tanner, and Arlene Shechet. His work has been in many national exhibitions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, “The Dirty South Cup Show” in Louisiana, and “Twin Cups” in Illinois for which he was awarded Best In Show. Harry teaches wheel throwing for Byrdcliffe Art Center in Woodstock, Kingston Clay Studio, and at Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts where he was an Intern in 2016. Currently, Harry and his wife Meredith maintain a home, studio (28a Clay), and wood-kiln near Woodstock, New York.

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

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Developing Imagery on Cone 6 Porcelain

with Matias Braun

Next session: September 5th to 9th, 2025

$600 More Info

Skill Level: Some experience useful

In this workshop we will focus on creating interesting painterly surfaces on ceramic objects by using wax resist, stencils, incising, painting, and drawing using underglazes. We will explore wheel throwing and handbuilding techniques as ways of making functional vessels that provide perfect spaces on which to develop imagery that is unique to you and your experiences in the world. There will be a bisque and glaze firing. Some ceramics experience is preferable.

Matias Braun is a ceramic artist, father, and surfer. Born in Madrid, New Mexico, but raised and residing in Costa Rica, Braun attended the University of Hawai'i at Manoa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics. His work has been displayed nationally and internationally in numerous juried and invitational exhibitions. Matias has been featured in Ceramics Monthly as a contributor to the "Working Potter Issue" edition. This year, Matius’ work was presented in the Demerest Pottery Show’s 50th anniversary exhibition.

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

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Poetic Utility: Function and Beyond

with Aysha Peltz

Next session: July 18th to 20th, 2025

$390 More Info

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

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Color Theory Primer

with Daniel Lloyd-Miller

Next session: July 5th, 2025

$170 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

A one day workshop covering all you could want to learn about color, and then a little bit more. No matter where your interests in color lie, this workshop will be an in-depth exploration of this essential element of the creative arts. The workshop will cover what color is and how we use it. Its glorious history and function will be the subject of lecture, demonstration, and hands-on workshopping. While this is a painting focused workshop, the underlying principles color are transferable to other mediums. Come join the fun in this place of bountiful summer color.

Daniel Lloyd-Miller is a painter concerned with place and working from observation. He carefully chooses places to paint in order to harmonize and better understand them. This act of delving into and absorbing a particular 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: $100 + $30 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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Explorations in Natural Paints, Dyes & Pigments

with Patricia Miranda

Next session: August 15th to 18th, 2025

$490 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

This workshop is an exploration of color using natural dyes and pigments. Participants will create color from raw materials such as cochineal, malachite, clay, oak gall, and black walnuts, for use in a diverse group of water-based binders, from gum arabic to distemper to egg tempera. We will explore the potentials of color, and how materials carry content through history, context, physical and aesthetic properties. Considerations of the environmental impact of materials will offer a framework for maintaining a sustainable safe painting practice. Participants will create a set of handmade watercolor paints, a color swatch book, and exploratory paintings on paper, textile, and panel.

Patricia Miranda is an artist, curator, educator, and founder of “The Lace Archive,” “The Crit Lab,” and “MAPSpace.” Grants include the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, Arts Westchester, Anonymous Was a Woman Relief Grant, and a NEA grant working with homeless youth. Solo exhibitions include Olin Fine Art Center, 3S Artspace, Jane Street Art Center, and group exhibitions Spartanburg Art Museum, Dunedin Fine Art Center; Lyman Allyn Museum. Recent reviews include Art New England and Brooklyn Rail.

Course Fee: $400 + $50 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee