Image uploaded by Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts

3D Embroidery: Things That Go Buzz

with Deborah Simon

Next session: July 18th to 20th, 2025

$380 More Info

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

Field Notes: A Writing Workshop

with Vince Montague

Next session: August 22nd to 24th, 2025

$370 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

A three-day generative writing workshop for artists and writers to explore and engage together in a supportive environment. Making notes and lists of the raw materials of our surroundings in the Catskills, we will transform those delving’s into short forms of poetry or prose. Workshop includes in-class prompts, explorations of landscape and objects to inspire new methods of harnessing creativity, and roundtable discussions of student work. The goal of this workshop is to open new doors, draft new beginnings, and return home with writing inspired by our experience together in these fabled mountains. With this beloved instructor, we offer one guarantee: all minds will be opened.

Vince Montague is a maker and a poet. Receiving his Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from NYU in 1989, Montague began publishing short stories in literary magazines including, California Quarterly, Westwind, The Florida Review, Nimrod, and Green Mountain Review. For 20 years, he has taught at colleges and universities throughout the Bay Area and has been an artist-in-residence at Carrizozo AIR, Playa Summer Lake, and Willapa Bay. Montague has been a professional studio artist since 2014, and recently, Latah Books published his memoir, Cracked Pot.

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

Introduction to Wood Splint Basketry

with Amy Krone

Next session: August 22nd to 24th, 2025

$590 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner to Advanced

Turn a tree into a basket in this 3-day, beginner-friendly course, where we will learn wood splint basketry. We will begin by exploring different methods of processing various hardwood trees from the northeastern forests, with a deep dive into white oak and white ash processing while also touching on other types of hardwoods suitable for basketry. Using wood that we split together, as well as pre-split wood, we will learn the ins and outs of frame style, wood splint basketry as we weave a beautiful 10" basket together utilizing a white oak frame, and hand split white ash weavers. Some hand strength for weaving these beautiful materials is needed, but friendly assistance is assured.

Amy Krone is an artist living and working in the forests of the Catskill Mountains. Her project, Cambium Lost Arts, is one dedicated to the revival of dying or forgotten practices of traditional craft. Currently, her focus is centered on the practice of hand-split white oak basketry in the Appalachian style—a journey that began in a used bookstore. “Finding meaning in my art through these woods is a gift the land has given me.” Krone’s approach is disciplined, mindful, and exquisitely detailed.

Course Fee: $300 + $250 Lab Fee + $40 Non-Refundable Registration Fee

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

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

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

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

Growing Constructing Wheeling: C6 Salt Firing

with Katie Fee

Next session: July 4th to 8th, 2025

$600 More Info

Skill Level: Beginner To Advanced

This workshop will focus on technical skills, cultivating curiosity, and learning from the surprises that arise in a studio practice. We will spend time making pots on and off the wheel, discuss clay’s material poetics, and will prepare together for a salt firing. Technical demonstrations will include wheel throwing, altering, trimming, hand building, slab making, and slip and glaze considerations. We will fire the soda/salt kiln to Cone 6. Potters of all skill levels are welcome!

Katie Fee grew up in Low Country, South Carolina. Fee earned her BA in Art and Geology from the William & Mary and her MFA from Alfred University. Fee’s work has led her to kiln pads and clay studios around the world - most recently to France and Japan - as a visiting artist, wood firing specialist, instructor, and project manager. She currently works full time as Studio Manager for Theaster Gates Studios in Chicago, Illinois.

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