In this immersive workshop with the artists of Cider Creek Collective, you’ll live in the coastal redwood forest, make things by hand, and fire wood kilns. Together we’ll source ideas in elemental ways: daily use, ecological decision-making, and site-specific responses to place. You’ll harvest and process native clays and play with glaze recipes using local materials. You’ll share respite from digital, urban, and consumer culture, and tune into intrinsic possibilities in raw natural materials, traditional skills, and offerings of the land. With a whole month to come and go from the studio, you can pace yourself and enjoy local life here on the coast.

During the first week, you’ll harvest local clay and glaze materials from unique ecosystems such as the pygmy forest and river estuaries. Cider Creek artists will demonstrate techniques in the studio, working back and forth between the potter’s wheel and handbuilding, utilitarian and sculptural, open to requests.

We’ll share tea and snacks using the tableware in our ceramic collection, as an opportunity for discussion and tactile experience with pots made by some incredible potters in the clay community. Your cohort will make food together, entering a rhythmic communal routine and appreciating nuances in the everyday that often go overlooked.

In the studio you’ll have enough time to experiment with the materials, moving at the pace of natural processes. We’ll discuss how to plan your making for specific kilns and the special conditions of atmospheric firing. You’ll join us in ongoing material tests as we work to replace industrial materials in our glaze palette with local, sustainable, ethical choices. During the 2nd week of the workshop, we can load and fire our new test gas and wood kilns with glaze tests and possible surfaces for your final body of work. Even weather will come into play, as your clay work responds to the climate and influences your path forward.

We’re introducing a special project this year in appreciation of our collaborators at Salmon Creek: We’ll all work together to produce a set of cups for each of the cabins. As Cider Creek explores the space between  residency and atelier, you’ll join our resident artists in an ongoing conversation about collective design and how to identify common ground where artists can work together to make larger projects possible.   

In the 3rd week, you’ll load your own work into the 50 cubic ft crossdraft catenary arch wood-salt/soda kiln and heat it up slowly, allowing the fire to decorate your pieces with melting ash and flame. The kiln will provide a toasty 2400 degree nucleus around which to gather as days get longer and fruit trees begin flowering in the orchard.

You’ll tend the firing in shifts, 24 hrs/day for 3-5 days, entering the circular clock of “kiln time”. You can choose what times of day work for you to tend the fire, and generally abandon traditional time and ambitions in favor of tuning into the colors, sounds, smells, and rhythm of the process. Remarkably and wonderfully, sharing information respectfully and helping and caring for each other around a hot kiln actually become essential tools of artistic process. This activity thrives on a sense of connection which, if nurtured, will allow the artmaking practice and everyone’s work to continue growing.

The kiln will take 3 days to cool, during which time you can enjoy Salmon Creek Farm and the local area on your own, visit local studios or kiln sites, and request optional demonstrations such as kintsugi gold repair. We’ll unload a day or two before you depart, discuss how to clean the work, and then everyone can make plans for how they’re going to continue to work together in the future!

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 always happy 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 offering you the opportunity to sink into tangible experience, with hand-crafted, comfortable living; a sense of community; and an integral connection with the natural environment.

For more info about Salmon Creek Farm and to apply, visit https://salmoncreekfarm-arts.org/Wood-Fire-Ceramics.