Lana Wilson and Jeff Oestreich

Innovative Pottery

Course Description
Lana Wilson and Jeff Oestreich will be working together in the same studio to present their ideas about innovative approaches to working with clay. The focus of the class will be on simple functional forms, and emphasis will be placed on those forms which we use at the table. Each day both Lana and Jeff will demonstrate, and participants in their workshop and in Nick Joerling's workshop may convene for slides daily. This workshop will be a reunion of artists who are old friends - a "Reunion Around the Table."

Participants working with Lana will use soft slabs of clay and optional textures to make simple and complex forms of cups, teapots, vases, and boxes (with drawers, recessed niches, and workable doors with stainless steel welding rod). Emphasis on feet, edges, handles, intricate multi-level stamps, and bas-relief tiles will help participants to develop a new clay vocabulary.

Participants working with Jeff will focus on the use of the potter’s wheel as an expressive tool in the making of functional pottery intended for daily use in the home. Attention will be given to how ideas are generated and incorporated into objects as universal and common as, for instance, cups and bowls.