Instructor: Paul Wisotzky
Monday - Friday
July 15 - 19
9am - 1pm
5 sessions
Open studio: Mon - Thurs, 2-4pm

This class, intended for intermediate to advanced students, will focus on creating functional pots that start on the wheel and, through various altering techniques, change shape from perfectly round to perfectly not round.  It will include altering at the soft and leather hard stages, deconstruction/reconstruction, adding hand-built elements, subtracting material, and attention to the surface both in the wet and leather-hard stages. We’ll explore a variety of utilitarian pottery forms including cups and mugs, serving dishes, and lidded vessels to name a few. We will be making some of the tools we will use to create the work. 

Basic wheel throwing skills required. Please bring an apron and towel to this workshop. 

Paul Wisotzky is a studio potter and educator from Truro, Massachusetts.  He makes functional pottery from porcelain and stoneware and fires his work in soda and reduction atmospheres at his studio Blueberry Lane Pottery.  Paul teaches at the Harvard University Ceramics Program, Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and conducts workshops across the United States.  He is a founder and co-producer of SodaPosium, a national educational gathering and celebration of soda firing.  Paul developed a process of digitally designing and fabricating sponge stamps using graphic design software and a laser cutter.  This process was featured in Ceramics Monthly Magazine and in an educational video available through the Ceramic Arts Network and CLAYflicks.  In his workshops and classes, Paul uses the stamps to decorate his pottery as well as teaching others how to use them.  Residencies include Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland School of Craft, and Red Lodge Clay Center.