Description
Natural objects with patterned imagery surround us in the environment. These will provide inspiration for making pieces from colored clay to express the beauty of fluid movement reminiscent of shells, rock and wood. Mason stains will be wedged into high-fire porcelain and different colors will be layered into a block. By slicing, carving, rolling and pinching, multi-dimensional effects are revealed.
This workshop will explore hand-building as well as throwing techniques with colored clay. The focus can be according to the participant’s interest. It is a wonderfully organic process that integrates the patterned designs with the piece. The weekend will include demonstrations and hands-on instruction.
Colored Clay–Layers Revealed
July 6 – July 11, 2025
Pull inspiration from patterned imagery in our natural environment to make pieces with colored clay. Express the beauty of fluid movement reminiscent of shells, rock and wood. Wedge stains into porcelain and layer different colors into a block. By slicing, carving, rolling, and pinching multi-dimensional effects can be revealed. Gain an appreciation for the ways colored clay integrates designs for both functional and sculptural forms. All levels welcome. Bisque firing as time allows.
Platter with Shaped Edge
Explore hand building and slip techniques with clay
This workshop is designed for those new or experienced with clay-working.
We will use pinch and slab construction to make pieces that will then be decorated with a variety of slip techniques. Slip is liquid clay that can be stained with different pigments. Creating surfaces with layered, colored slips such as combing, texturing, stenciling, printing, painting and more will be explored, producing a sense of depth and intrigue.
We will make paper templates as a useful tool for envisioning how a flat slab of clay can be folded into a three-dimensional form. A clay slab is rolled out and cut into the shape of the template. Before or after the folding and construction takes place, the pigmented slips will be applied to the surface. Tips and tricks will be shown for folding, wrapping, attaching and treating seams, edges and corners.
Pieces made during the first few days will get bisque fired towards the end of the week. All pieces made will be fired after the workshop which is included in the workshop fee.
About the Instructor:
Since 1998 Naomi Lindenfeld has been the ceramics teacher at The Putney School, teaching a variety of hand-building and wheel-throwing methods. Naomi has also taught a number of colored clay, and more recently, colored slip workshops at craft centers around the northeast and beyond. She has enjoyed the opportunity to share her enthusiasm for these unusual and exciting techniques.
Lore Kadden Lindenfeld (1921 – 2010) emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in the late 1930s. She attended Black Mountain College from 1945-48 and was a student of both Josef and Anni Albers as well as Trude Guermonprez. Inspired by the Alberses and the Bauhaus tradition, she worked as a textile designer for the New York fashion industry followed by a career as a weaver, fiber collage artist and as a weaving and art history teacher on the college level. This exhibition presents the work of Naomi Lindenfeld in conversation with her mother’s innovative textiles.
I grew up with my mother’s loom in our family’s living room. Not many years later I ended up with clay carving tools and a rolling pin in my own ceramics studio. The pairings of work in this show exemplify the influences of my mother’s work on me and have served as an opportunity to both grow creatively and to honor my mother and her life’s work.
I grew up hearing riveting stories of Black Mountain College, its avant-garde, experimental environment and brilliant, unique personalities. As well, I was exposed to many artists and craftspeople during my childhood and took my first pottery class with a friend of my mother’s. I responded to the immediacy of clay more than what appeared to be the tedium of threading warps on a loom. While working on a degree in ceramics from Boston University’s Program in Artisanry, I discovered the Japanese technique, Nerikomi, of layering colored clays to create patterns. I have been captivated by exploring many ways of working with colored clay ever since. I have also come to realize that my method of working with clay – the sense of movement, abstract graphic quality, nature-themed imagery and vivid color – echoes my mother’s textiles. In designing work for this show, I was first more drawn to my mother’s fiber collage work than her weavings, as a closer match for my own techniques and sensibilities. I later saw that the way I carve into the layers in two directions appears as woven fabric.
It was both fascinating and challenging to interpret a two-dimensional medium within a three-dimensional realm; to not just reproduce my mother’s ideas and imagery but to draw inspiration and design the pieces as my own. My hope is that my ceramics, while paying homage to my mother, stand on their own just as her fiber works do.
— Naomi Lindenfeld
This exhibit was originally scheduled for February to May 2025 but has been postponed one year due to the effects on the Asheville area of flooding from Hurricane Helene. Fortunately, the Black Mountain Museum & Art Center was undamaged except for losing power and water for about a month which caused it to close its operations during that time. The region, however, is undergoing massive recovery efforts and the hope is that Asheville will revive and thrive once again.
