Classes & Workshops
Fall Firing Class: Making for the Soda Kiln
$450.00
Instructor: Emma Eckert, Wednesday evenings 5-8pm
Aug. 12th - Sept. 30th, 2026; loading Saturday Sept. 26th
Join us for an 8-week exploration of making, surface, and atmospheric firing. Over seven weeks, students will develop a body of work while investigating form, function, surface, and process. Through demonstration, discussion, and individual experimentation, we will explore a range of approaches to making, decorating and finishing pots; encouraging curiosity, play, and thoughtful decision-making throughout the process.
The final week of this course culminates in a collaborative loading and firing of our gas-soda kiln with the help of Cider Creek resident Wolfgang Obergin, where flame and vapor become active participants in the finished work.
Suitable for potters of all skill levels. Come and make with us!
Salmon Creek Farm Collaborations
Crocks and Kraut: Ceramic & Fermenting Arts November 2-15, 2026
Here at Cider Creek, we’re always looking for ways to bring our artmaking practice closer to the work of stewarding the land, such as by making pots that work together with the food we grow. And it so happens this soil and climate love to grow cabbage!
In this tasty workshop, we’ll learn how to make various styles of fermentation crocks using our local clay stoneware and a combination of wheel-throwing and hand-building. We’ll fire them with wood in our catenary arch soda kiln, and while the kiln cools, we’ll teach you a few different kinds of kraut, kimchi, and pickles to make at home in your own crock.
No experience is required with clay or the potters’ wheel, though some would be helpful. Building large(ish) pots in stages with multiple pieces of clay means working slowly, in order to thoroughly understand how the wall of a pot is constructed. It’s actually a great context for learning how to make pottery. We’ll spend a lot of time considering the construction of different rims for sealing the crocks, and how to make an inside surface that is watertight and can be easily cleaned. Just handbuilding instead of using the wheel is an option, and also your crock doesn’t have to be very large!
For more info and to register:
March 2027 Month-long Workshop: Making & Firing with Wood Kilns
In this immersive ceramic workshop taught by the founders and resident artists of Cider Creek, you’ll live in the coastal forest, make things with clay, and fire a catenary-arch wood-soda kiln. You’ll harvest and process native clays and play with glaze recipes using local materials. With plenty of time to come and go from the studio, you can pace yourself and explore how it feels to settle into local life here on the coast.
You’ll source ideas in elemental ways: daily use, ecological decision-making, site-specific responses to place. You’ll share respite from digital, urban, and consumer culture, and tune into intrinsic possibilities in raw materials, process, and the land.
Participants will stay up the hill at the historic Back to the Land commune known as Salmon Creek Farm, lovingly restored and stewarded since 2014 by artist and architect Fritz Haeg. We’re excited to join Fritz and the SCF community in a larger conversation about land-based, shared creative activity. SCF “continues the legacy of the original ‘70’s commune, entering a new chapter as a long-term art project shaped by many hands, a sort of queered commune-farm-homestead-sanctuary-school hybrid”. Cider Creek and Salmon Creek share a vision of giving folks the opportunity to sink into tangible experience, with hand-crafted, comfortable living; a sense of community; and a connection with the natural environment.
For more info and to register, visit https://salmoncreekfarm-arts.org/Wood-Fire-Ceramics !
