This course is designed for students who already have wheel throwing experience and are interested in glazing with natural materials. Under the guidance of Adele Williams, you will throw pots on the wheel, then forage and process local clays and plants to create your own glazes.
You’ll start by making small pots, which will be dried and fired. While these pieces are drying, Adele will lead you in foraging for materials, which you’ll test and try various combinations, also including some standard glaze ingredients, to create your own glazes.
This is an experimental course focusing on testing and learning, any results will come from your own material combinations. The final pots you make will hopefully be the first in your journey with including natural materials in glazes.
The course is hands-on and experimental, allowing you to focus on the process without distractions. By the end, you can choose which pieces you’d like to glaze and have fired. Some test tiles will be ready to take home, while your glazed pots will be fired and shipped to you after the retreat.
Although the course is focussed on learning rather than making pieces, you will be able to keep some of the pieces you make:
IMPORTANT: You will have the opportunity to use your own glazes on the wheel pieces you made. But be aware that any items left unglazed at the end of the course, that you want to keep and be shipped, will be glazed for you in the studio's transparent glossy glaze.
Adele Williams is a potter with 9 years of teaching experience. She's developed a love for encouraging students to stretch their skills, making work that is both beautiful and functional. Bringing creativity into items that are part of your everyday.
Based in London, Adele makes work as Hackney Potter in the artist run studio Clay Collective. Concentrating on a love for materials she has developed a practice that produces functional ware with an experimental approach. Whether digging clay to make clay bodies and slips, creating ashes for glazing or experimenting with firing techniques. Her work follows a desire to experiment and understand.
This course is not recommended for wheel throwing complete beginners. However, we will not be concentrating on throwing large pieces during this course so this course is perfect for you if:
This course is just perfect for you if you are deeply interested in natural materials, experimentation and process, and you want to forage and process your own materials and practice making some experimental glazes. If you don’t mind (in fact, you like!) roaming around the countryside to find rocks and plants.
No previous experience or knowledge of glaze chemistry is required, as we will learn some basic principals as part of the course.
During this week, you won’t just get a ceramics course. We’ve also organised a program of activity so that you can connect with Sicilian culture, get to know the town of Salemi and its rich history and territory.
You will:
The Salemi School of Ceramics is a social enterprise that has been opened to create a learning centre for contemporary ceramics, the first of its kind in Sicily.
The School has been created in partnership with the local town of Salemi, which has provided the gorgeous space - the St Agustin Convent - that will be used for the school.
Salemi has a gorgeous historical centre and because it is quiet and peaceful, it is the perfect place for a mindful ceramics retreat.
Classes will be held from Monday through to Friday. On Sunday, there will be a welcome dinner and on Saturday, we will bid you farewell.
Classes will be 4h each morning (9am-1pm) and 2/3h on Monday and Friday afternoon (2-5pm). Tuesday and Thursday afternoon you will have 2/3h or “free studio time”, supervised by your teacher. Wednesday afternoon is normally dedicated to an excursion, sometimes followed by 2h of “free studio time”.
Order of the day:
Note: because of practical limitations, no more studio time is allowed outside of this schedule.
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The Salemi Project wants to make Salemi a recognised centre for contemporary ceramic art. Come and be part of it!
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