This workshop explores ceramic practice from idea to object, led by three artists working in active dialogue with one another. Rather than presenting a single methodology, the 5-day workshop week offers a layered conversation with three distinct perspectives examining how concept, construction, and surface intersect in contemporary ceramics.
Participants will engage learn and practice through coil building, wheel throwing and altering demonstrations. Students work in low fire terra cotta and high fire white clay bodies and will study surface approaches including, raw clay, mid-range glaze application, and China painting. Students will discover how different artists move through the ceramic making process in distinct ways, gaining insight into multiple approaches rather than a single prescribed path.
About the Artists
Penelope Van Grinsven is a ceramic artist and educator based in Chicago, Illinois. For the past five years she taught ceramics in New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University and Southern Connecticut State University, where she developed and led innovative studio courses and helped expand access to ceramics across campus. At Yale, she transformed a decentralized network of student-run studios into structured, thriving spaces serving hundreds of undergraduates and launched the university’s first full-credit ceramics seminar. Her teaching centers on cultivating technical fluency, material sensitivity, and the confidence to pursue ambitious ideas in clay.
Her artistic practice is grounded in the embodied performance of wheel-throwing and a deep belief in the vitality of utilitarian ceramics. She creates functional wares alongside conceptual projects that explore ritual, documentation, and site-responsive action — from photographing moon jars during Sweden’s midnight sun to ringing porcelain bells at historic ceramic sites in Montana. She is also co-founder and co-curator of Above Board Ceramics, an exhibition platform dedicated to functional tableware, transparency in gallery practices, and expanding representation within the ceramics community.
Bradley Klem is a Denver-based ceramic artist who considers pottery itself a medium, one capable of carrying image, metaphor, and cultural memory. Drawing from historical decorative traditions, he builds layered surfaces through China painting and pattern, placing contemporary imagery and dark humor onto familiar forms. His recent work engages the petroleum industry, consumer culture, and the cultural conditions surrounding climate change, embedding these concerns within vessels that remain grounded in the history of ceramics.
Klem holds an MFA from Penn State University and teaches ceramics at the University of Denver. He serves on the board of La Serra Collective, an arts organization committed to cultivating meaningful creative community. His work has been exhibited nationally and is included in private and institutional collections.
He lives in Denver with his wife and daughter, whose curiosity and joy continually renew his sense of purpose.
Stephanie Seguin is an artist and educator based in Helena, Montana. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Pennsylvania State University, and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Minnesota State University, Moorhead. Throughout her studio career she has taught workshops, continuing education classes, and academic courses in both Art and Art History across the United States. In conjunction with teaching, she has remained active in her studio practice through residencies, and exhibitions, while furthering her professional experience in Arts Leadership. Currently, Stephanie works from her home studio and holds the position of Education Director for The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts.
Price:
$535.00