One of seven courses available for the May 11 – 14, 2023 MCA Weekend Workshop @ Haystack
Your Future Pots- CURRENTLY FULL/ Waitlist only
Instructor: Ayumi Horie
Haystack Studio: Ceramics
Enrollment Limit: 14
Materials Fees: $40.00 – $90.00, See Below
Level: All Levels
Class Description:
This pottery-focused workshop is designed to help participants push their work forward to the next steps/next level through individual and group discussions. How do our own life experiences contribute meaning to our work? How do we absorb inspiration and make it our own? What does it mean to make something that is true to ourselves and is that even something to strive for? Demos will include Sgraffito, Mishima, Dry Throwing, and decals. The workshop will center on process and risktaking. All skill levels are welcome and participants will be met where they are in their own practice. Participants can expect at least one electric cone 6 firing and two decal firings.
Materials + Fees:
Participants in this workshop will have two options to select from for the studio materials fee. MCA staff will contact registered participants after the registration date to confirm their selection.
Materials Fee Option #1: $40.00
As this workshop is tailored to the creativity and goals of each participant, students may select to provide their own preferred clay. When choosing this option students will be responsible for the purchase and transport of their own 50 lbs box of clay (or more) and are responsible for removing any leftover clay at the end of the workshop. The $40 fee covers the studio lab fee and other materials supplied by the instructor.
Participants are expected to bring:
– Your favorite throwing tools
– A hand towel
– An apron
Materials Fee Option #2: $90.00
Students will be supplied with one 50lb box #16 Laguna Porcelain. MCA will take care of the transport to the Haystack Campus. Participants should plan on removing any extra clay and or scraps at the end of the workshop. The $90 fee covers the studio lab fee, other materials supplied by the instructor, and the box of porcelain.
Participants are expected to bring:
– Your favorite throwing tools
– A hand towel
– An apron
About the Instructor-
AYUMI HORIE is known for her functional pottery with drawings of animals and typography. Colorful, playful, and explorative, Horie’s work is admired and sought after for its bold imagery with subtle characteristics. She has displayed a high proficiency in materials through exploration and ingenuity, becoming well known for her “dry throwing” technique and storytelling skills that have carried her beyond her foundation in clay into a broader variety of media and community action initiatives.
While building her studio practice, Horie founded, encouraged, and collaborated on many socially minded projects that have asked those in craft to engage in conversation or to create work that calls to action. These projects include Portland Brick, The Democratic Cup, and Pots in Action, a curated Instagram feed that challenged the canon of ceramics. It gave its audience high-quality educational content changing the understanding of what clay could or should be, globally. It ran for five years connecting the voices of over 70 guest hosts, bringing to light the diversity and practice of ceramics used around the world, often overlooked by many leaders in craft.
Recently Horie connected with the Center for Craft to seed and create the Craft Archive Fellowship. The fellowship will support scholarship and archival research around underrepresented and non-dominant craft narratives.
Horie has lectured and taught workshops all across the United States and beyond. She has served on the Board of Directors at the Archie Bray Foundation and American Craft Council and is currently the President of the Board of Trustees of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
Ayumi was awarded the MCA’s 2022 Maine Craft Artist Award.