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Hello everyone,
Winter has come with a vengeance in Melbourne....dark, wet days keep us huddled in the warm studio while Slow Clay's Jane Sawyer has been skipping around Morocco and Spain for a couple of weeks. You can see some of her images on Facebook to bring some warmth!
This month we want to update you with the last few places still available in courses for the upcoming Term 3 and also a little taster interview with our next guest artist, Neil Hoffmann.
Term 3 weekly classes: 11 July-1 September
Limited places available in:
- Form and Surface - hand building course with Prue Venables
- Porcelain Wearables and Small Objects - with Pilar Rojas
- Matter Over Mind - workshop with Neil Hoffmann
- Clay Club Holiday Class - for kids!
Join us for a fantastic way to keep warm and productive during the winter season!
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We are getting excited to welcome Tasmanian artist Neil Hoffmann for this unique demonstration workshop Matter Over Mind ! Neil will focus on the innovative making methods he has developed during his career while engaging in a lively discussion with participants. Neil is renowned for his organic, primal, rock-like surfaces of his sculptures which are actually derived from melting local rocks. His pieces seem like encapsulated homages to abstract landscapes that can be intuited rather than illustrated. His motivation and dedication to "...seeking an artist's communion with the deep geophysical past" is tangible in his finished pieces.
Scroll to the end of this newsletter for a little taster of some of Neil's expression! All welcome, including non-ceramists and complete beginners, for this inspiring demonstration workshop!
$245 (or $207 for Slow Clay students or other students/unemployed)
Book through our website or call 03 99437844.
Limited places available.
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Join our Form & Surface hand building course with well respected artist Prue Venables! She provides an inspiring method to explore endless possibilities to make your own designs whilst investigating their surfaces.
Limited spots available
Starting on 14 July
8 weeks, $468
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Join our Porcelain Wearables & Small Objects course with experienced artist Pilar Rojas! This 6-week course is designed to enable you to make porcelain wearables and small objects based on your individual designs.
6 x Tuesday evenings
starting on 12 July, $468
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Want some cool clay fun for your children these holidays?
Our holiday Clay Club is run over two consecutive mornings.
Children receive tuition and guidance in all aspects of making ceramics, including using the potter's wheel, in an atmosphere of fun and exploration.
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See also our after school Clay Club for kids on Wednesdays starting 13 July!
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Neil Hoffmann: MATTER OVER MIND
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SCC: So Neil, why does MATTER matter to you?
NH: I enjoy the transformative power of fire, its power to change materials and add qualities to the surface of objects. These surfaces are often the result of chance as much as intent, carrying unexpected but welcome qualities. This is especially true for those of us using wood burning kilns, by which ash and flame bring a large and unpredictable range of colour and surface. But I also like to find ways in the first stages of making that allow the actual form, that mass within the ‘skin’, to be affected in unimaginable or ‘impossible to anticipate’ ways. For this I find ways to put distance between my making and my thinking. Working ‘blind’, fast, slow, or large are some of the methods I use to soften my control. On occasions, while employing extreme heat, I invite gravity to pull down and reshape matter.
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SCC: How did you originally connect with clay?
NH: I grew up in the country and I experienced the earth in ways many country kids do. These bought an early connection with mud, earth, and clay. My encounters were informative and formative. At age thirteen, I was given a bag of processed clay just at the time my family moved to the city. This clay became a touchstone of sorts for my early years of living in the country, keeping me connected to wild, less ‘made’ places, places quite different to the hardened concrete and asphalt covered city landscape. This gave me an awareness of clay as a raw material and my curiosity about things made of clay and how they were made, began to grow. I soon embraced the challenge of conjuring form on the potter’s wheel. With time, my engagement became much more and I now enjoy connectivity to the rich traditions of ceramics and regularly meet and work with fellow clay workers from many parts of the world.
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