Finding Form for Artistic Growth: 2-day Wheel Throwing Workshop - Saturday & Sunday 4/12 & 4/13, 10 AM - 4 PM

Dates: April 12th and 13th, 2025

Instruction: 10 AM - 12 PM

Break: 12 PM - 2 PM

Instruction: 2 PM - 4 PM

Price: $50 - includes both days of instruction and firing for members and students. If you are not a member or a student, you can bisque up to 4 pieces and additional firings are priced separately. 

Description: This workshop welcomes both beginner throwers and experienced potters looking to deepen their understanding of form and refine their touch. Students will start with foundational shapes like small cylinders and bowls, focusing on body alignment, centering, and working with ribs to develop fluidity on the wheel. Instructor Alan Holiday will demonstrate playful, functional forms with an emphasis on staying relaxed, and letting the clay guide the process.

As the workshop progresses, students will take on more complex forms, including, but not limited to, covered jars and narrow-necked vases. Time will also be set aside for special requests and experimentation, ensuring a personalized and exploratory learning experience. 

Pre-requisites: Taken 1 or more 8-week intro classes or the ability to center and throw a 6 inch cylinder. 

About the Instructor:

Alan Holiday is a studio potter in Santa Cruz, California, who began throwing pots in 1977, the same year he began his study of the Japanese martial art of Aikido. He has continued both centering practices to this day. In his teaching, he emphasizes that throwing pots takes patience, discipline, and humility. It is a practice that fosters a centered, process-over-product state of mind that is healing as well as creative. Holiday trained under master potter Al Johnsen who was a student of Marguerite Wildenhain. Wildenhain, a strict teacher of pottery, was trained at the Bauhaus in pre-war Germany. The Bauhaus was a unique school that combined art education with classes taught by craftspeople from the salt glaze throwing tradition dating back to the Middle Ages.