Ceramic Workshop at Horse Riding School and Nature Center

This workshop ran for a few days, though the participants, divided into groups of around 15 children, stayed with me just for 45 minutes before moving on to another activity. The children, 3 to 8 years old, were on school day trips. This was a very intense, fun and refreshing experience. The ceramic workshop was designed as another activity part of a circuit, there were 5 different activities for the children to experience. The ceramic workshop was inspired by this greek terracotta horse from the 5th century:

My aim was for the children to try some basic ceramic techniques like coiling, pinching... I wanted them to have fun and to create something related to the other activities on offer, all conected to horses, horse riding and life in a farm. The activity and the outcome had to be something that even a 3 years old could do with some help. Children could add, if they wanted to,a rider or other things to the horse and let their imagination run free...and they did. All in all it was a very good expereince. I was not alone with the children, Maria one of the owners of the riding school, helped me with the children. It was really nice and easy to work with her

Chidren and adults Ceramics courses at Cocodesign

The following are some images taken at the ceramics course I am teaching at CO&CODesign. The students are divided into two groups , children and adults. I am quite amazed by their talent and perseverance.

The course is an introduccion to ceramics. I am teaching the basics of ceramics and its techniques.

Primitive ceramics workshop/obradoiro at Os Biobardos con Quibutz

Os Biosbardos is a unique place for agricultural and crafts exploration. Os Biosbardos hosts many different projects always with a permacultural mindset. It is like an oasis located on the border of an industrial state. There is clay in Os Biobardos and this was the main reason for this workshop, to collect process and test the clay. Two sessions were open to the public and admitted participants. One session for produccion and another for firing. At the produccion session participants were shown the source of the clay,but they did not have to dig for it. They all had a go at kneading and in the meanwhile I explained them about the need to wedge the clay, where / how to look for local wild clay and how to process it in order to get a workable clay. I used clay obtained from different locations, all in the vicinity.

The particippants formed an heterogeneous group of children and adults. They did not have much experience with ceramics and its techniques. I demostrated coiling, pinching and building with soft slabs into wich we pressed leaves for decoration.

My first choice for the firing was an open pit firing . Open pit firings do not require many hours and are very engaging and celebratory ,so it was the most suitable choice for this ocasion. Sadly that was not posible due to dry weather and firing restrictions. So we improvised a kiln with a metal barrel. They have some at Os Biosbardos, there was also a lid/chimmney, as they are experimenting in organic charcoal production. It was a magic day but finally at night we had to put off the fire as there was no people from Os Biosbardos and we had to leave, so we had put out the fire, before most pots could not reach sintering temperature temperature. This was dissapointing but an important lesson.