Castle Hill Spring 60+ Program 2025
This FREE program is open to full time, year-round residents of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Chatham, Harwich or Brewster. You must be 60 years of age or older to participate.
Take a workshop this spring with Castle Hill and grow your skills in ceramics, poetry, collage, or drawing!
This program is made possible in part by the Local Cultural Councils and the Civil Society Institute.
Learn more about membership and giving to Castle Hill CLICK HERE.
Hand Building with Clay
with Ryder Gordon
Mondays & Wednesdays
April 7, 9, 14, 16, 23, 28 (No class April 21)
9am - 12pm
6 sessions
Discover the joy of ceramics in our beginner-friendly handbuilding class! Great for everyone, this engaging course teaches you the essentials of working with clay by hand. Our experienced instructor will guide you through pinch, coil, and slab techniques, allowing you to create functional pottery and sculptural forms. Learn about clay properties, proper handling, and design principles in a supportive environment. Interact with fellow students, exchanging ideas and inspiration. Unleash your creativity and join us on this exciting clay-filled journey!
Please note: this class is scheduled to take place in a second floor studio with only stair access.
Ryder grew up in the Boston area, where he was introduced to the potter’s wheel at a young age. He graduated with a degree in art education and ceramics from UMass Dartmouth. He has studied wood, gas, and soda firing with Chris Gustin and Chris Smith, as well as raku with Stephen Branfman. Ryder has instructed and assisted at The Potter’s Shop and School in Needham, Peter’s Valley School of Craft, and Castle Hill Center for the Arts. Ryder’s work is defined by pushing the limits of what can be accomplished both on and off the potter’s wheel. He creates functional pottery with shapes that bulge, grow, and swirl as well as more decorative coil-built vessels. Ryder uses glaze and atmospheric firing to highlight his complex forms, creating dynamic surfaces.
POETRY
with Keith Althaus
Tuesdays & Fridays
April 2, 5, 9, 12, 16, 19
9:30am - 11:30am
6 sessions
For this workshop bring poems you have recently written, or are working on. Please bring approximately 10 copies of each poem to share with the class.
Poet Keith Althaus is the author of several poetry collections, including Ladder of Hours (2005), Rival Heaven (1993), and Cold Storage (2016). His New & Selected Poems will appear this summer.
MIXED MEDIA COLLAGE
WITH WATER-BASED MATERIALS
with Michael Giaquinto
Mondays & Wednesdays
April 7, 9, 14, 16, 23, 28 (No class April 21)
1pm - 3:30pm
6 sessions
Mixed media may include acrylic paints, graphite, pastels, crayons, ink markers, any water-based materials. You can work on canvas board, pre-painted masonite, paper, matte board, old books—any firm surface that will take paints and adhesives. Examples will be shown to help you artistically create a unique piece of art. You can reconstruct and refashion a book using objects that tell a story. This workshop will bring together a variety of mixed media including collage, embellishments and paper craft. Demonstrations, critiques and group discussion will be included.
Michael A. Giaquinto, former Exhibitions Curator at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, studied art at Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA. and art history at North Carolina State University. He was awarded “Craftsman of the Year '' by the Early American Life Magazine in 2001 and 2005, the VISI Award, from Cape Cod & Islands Art Educators Association in 2017, and and served as guest speaker or the Guild of Harwich Artists, 2017. His work has been exhibited with Berta Walker Gallery; Chabot Fine Art Gallery, and Miller White Fine Arts. He has held workshops at the Creative Arts Center; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Weny Education Center at CCMOA; and the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, He is featured in Deborah Forman’s book, Contemporary Cape Cod Artists on Abstraction, 2015.
DRAWING
with Rob DuToit
Tuesdays & Thursdays
April 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 24
9:30am - 12pm
6 sessions
This drawing class is open to students of all levels, including beginners. In fact, we will all try to approach this workshop as beginners open to possibilities and willing to see what happens, hopefully without too much judgement about what painting “should” be. We will work with the fundamentals of color, value, and composition, starting with a limited palette and work our way up to a more robust color experience. Each week there will be a slide presentation of masters, past and present, who were able to bring life to their pictures and how they inspire us to do the same. This class is not about accomplishment or finished products, more about exploration and developing good practices.
Rob DuToit began painting with oils and drawing with ink at the age of 10, often inspired by Chinese paintings he saw at Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He received a BFA from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA from Parsons School Of Design in New York City where he studied with Paul Resika and Leland Bell. Post graduate, he apprenticed with a legendary frame maker becoming a master framer and gilder and now runs his own shop out of his studio in Provincetown. An active artist since the 1980’s, he has been involved in numerous solo and group shows in Boston, New York and the Outer Cape and is currently showing his work at Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown. His work can also be viewed at robdutoit.com. He has an early background in the sciences, especially biology, which contribute to his appreciation of nature and the underlying structure of things. A student of zen, he combines daily meditation practice as a way to further meeting things “as they are.” He lives in Truro with his wife Janice Redman, the sculptor, and his son Alexander who is a film photographer and student of science.