Suze Lindsay

Slab Work: Making Sets and Series for Salt

Course Description
This workshop will begin with simple drop and drape molds and slab construction. We will make molds from clay and from insulating foam. Platters, dishes, and serving trays will be explored and articulated with additions of feet and rims. Using slips for the salt kiln, we will focus on decorative techniques, using brushwork and resist to stretch and expand personal imagery. Focusing on the idea of making multiples, we will explore continuity between form and surface. Pots will be once fired in the salt kiln, so one part of the workshop will be learning to load and fire a salt kiln. Daily demos, sketchbook exercises, and slides of contemporary and historical pottery will enhance ideas for experimentation and play.

Artist's Biography
Suze Lindsay is a studio potter living and working in the North Carolina mountains. Her ceramic studies include a two-year fellowship from 1987-89 at Penland School of Crafts as a “core student,” followed by earning an MFA from Louisiana State University. She also holds two educational degrees, one in special education and the other in Montessori teaching theory. In 1996, after completing three years as an artist in residence at Penland, Suze and her husband Kent McLaughlin set up and began potting in their studio in Bakersville, NC, under the name Fork Mountain Pottery.

Suze Lindsay’s stoneware pots subtly reference the figure, as she is known for her altered pottery forms that are decorated and fired in a salt kiln. Her mark-making is strongly influenced by her study of historical ceramics, with a focus on surface decoration used to enhance form by patterning and painting slips and glazes. She has taught at numerous art centers and universities, in addition to being a presenter at several conferences. Her work is in permanent collections throughout the United States and abroad.