Pottery Like Architecture
SESSION III: JUNE 15-21
CLAY
WITH KRISTINA BATISTE
Join Kristina Batiste for a design thinking sprint with clay - learn to deconstruct and fine tune the decisions that can expand your practice from making work for anyone to designing work for someone specific.
Course Description
We’re going to make pottery like architects - deeply considering the needs, tastes, and intended use for a specific client rather than making something to appeal to a larger market segment. You’ll draft a client brief outlining a custom breakfast set for someone you know, with their tastes and intended use in mind but always informed by your preferred aesthetic and making methods. Then you’ll take your design through two iterations.
This course will actually “start” a few months in advance, each participant will create a potter’s statement and client brief (don’t worry! There will be a worksheet!) . Then, via a 1-1 zoom call, we’ll collaboratively:
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refine your brief
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focus your design intent and production strategy
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clarify and integrate your client’s practical needs and tastes with your artistic vision resulting in a cohesive design plan.
During the week, we’ll explore intended use, articulation, schematic design, method and production strategy, supportive critiquing methods, iterative making, and we’ll wrap with a celebratory show & tell alongside the original client brief.
It’ll be rewarding. And maybe a little terrifying.
Tuition & Fees
- $1850 (including double room accommodations)
- $2050 (including single room accommodations)
- $1600 (off campus, no housing included)
- For more details on tuition & fees please visit this page.
Artist Biography
Kristina Batiste is a Tacoma-based ceramic artist with a focus on working with subtext in functional and sculptural projects.
“I use my work to hold space for complex ideas, things like relationships or justice or beauty. Sometimes a cup is just a cup. But sometimes it can spark a difficult but important conversation. Sometimes it can express an emotion that’s too big to verbalize. There’s incredible power in the tradition of functional pottery, in things that are made to be both seen and used, functional work is an invitation to connect with people over an object that fits in the palm of your hand. It’s a truly wondrous thing.”
Kristina is the 2023 recipient of The Current Artist Award presented by the Tacoma Art Museum, she was the subject of a feature article in the Summer 2024 issue of American Craft, is one of the artists featured in “Black American Ceramic Artists” (published by Schiffer 2022), and was the feature in a segment of Hulu’s "Your Attention Please" documentary series in 2021, and is the co-founder of the Tacoma Pottery Salon. She still dreads glaze day just as much as you do.
Learn more about Kristina Batiste and her work by visiting her website juniper-clay.com and checking out her instagram @juniperclay.
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Shakerag Workshops of St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School does not discriminate on the basis of race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or gender.