Drawing with Clay with Julia Pierce — Jan 11 - Mar 1

Dates: January 11, 2025 → March 1, 2025
Times: Saturdays 10am-1pm
Level: All levels

Workshop Description:
Using the theme of line drawing, students will create a coil-built sculptural form based on an image they’d like to reproduce. Experiential and loose drawing exercises in clay will help students gather images and source ideas to further their sculptural practice.

We will go over introductory hand-building skills such as coil-building and expand upon techniques for building large, intricate forms. Coil building on top of line drawings will bring new consideration to shape and form. This project helps students consider the base/footprint of their sculpture, apply structural attachment techniques, and work with the clay in its correct wetness. We will also discuss how our building technique creates imprints in order to consider surface decoration.Class will include different exercises for “drawing” on clay in order to help students practice various approaches to mark making and surface design, and to provide students with smaller pieces that serve as maquettes. Students will consider how drawing and imagery can expand their sculptural practice in making or in final installation. We will look at contemporary ceramic artists who integrate drawings alongside their sculptures in installation and in their studio practice.

Class exercises may include bringing clay out to the headlands for explorative texture walks and a temporary community-built coil piece. The aim of the course is to help students alter their perception on traditional making; these projects serve as loose exercises that help shift how one starts and imagines a piece while encouraging play in their practice. At the end of the course, students will create a final installation with their collected drawings and sculptural work.

About the Instructor:
Julia (Jules) Pierce is an observer, sculptor, and record keeper. Working with clay as line, they make coil-built clay drawings based on the figure and observed forms found in nature. By weaving a relationship between the two, Julia explores the transformation of an observed form into a permanent object as an act of preservation.They have spent the last two years working as a studio technician for The Potters’ Studio in Berkeley. Julia received their BFA in Studio Art from the University of California, Davis and has been a resident at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. Most recently, they spent their summer at Cider Creek Collective in Albion, CA. Julia grew up amongst the hills and pepper trees in North County San Diego and has family ties to Mariposa and Norwalk, CA.

Optional Materials:
- sketchbook
- needle tool, serrated metal rib