Creative Hands - Clay Hand Building Classes

In this class participants will familiarize themselves with clay and glazes, using hand tools and their own fingers. We will use coils and a slab roller to make two different kinds of pots during the first 3 sessions and glaze in a further session. Decorating techniques such as incising, carving and texturing will be covered as needed. More advanced participants may work on their own ideas. Teaching artist, Claudine Burns Smith, is a ceramic artist, making both functional work and sculpture. Art has been her life since childhood, first in France where she was born, then in the States. Aside from an occasional workshop Claudine is self-taught, learning from looking at work in museums and galleries, especially work done by artists of other cultures or of other times. She has also been influenced by a number of artists in her family. Claudine has a home studio where she spends many hours each week. Until a few years ago, she taught art full-time at the high school and college level. Claudine does not use a wheel for her functional ware, preferring to build everything by hand to create irregularities that add interesting effects. She uses mid-range stoneware and glazes and sometimes terracotta for sculpture. Claudine has had numerous group and solo exhibitions of ceramics, sculptures and works on paper in the States, France, the former Soviet Union and China. She is currently represented in several galleries in Connecticut.