• Workshops

    All 2024 workshops are full with waitlists. Join my email list for future announcements at eepurl.com/oElav

    Two Workshops with Jeanine Pennell of Bonetown Studio
    I'm so excited to host these two 2-day workshops with Jeanine in my studio in July 2024. See Jeanine's work @bonetownstudio on Instagram.

    Let’s Make Some Faces
    Friday, July 12 & Monday, July 15. $395 includes bisque firing after the first day and materials. Some clay tools will be recommended. All levels welcome.
    In this two day workshop I will teach you how I make my small figures. In the first class we will use stoneware paperclay to learn how to make simple face details and small torsos. I’ll show you my simple and fun way to make ears and noses as well as simple hands and arms. In the second class the pieces will be bisque fired and I will teach you my underglazing and finishing techniques.

    Let’s Make More Than Just Faces
    Saturday, July 13 & Tuesday, July 16. $395 includes bisque firing after the first day and materials. Some clay tools will be recommended. All levels welcome.
    In this two day workshop I will teach you how to build more of a figure in clay. We will concentrate more on arms and legs (even hands and fingers) as well as go into more depth with facial features such as teeth and expressions. We will also discuss costuming and gestures. If time allows I will also demonstrate scaling up to larger figures and faces.

    Sign up for both workshops for $690. That's $100 off!

    •••• 2024 WORKSHOPS WITH SARA at Clay Circle Studio ••••

    Two-Day Creative Process Workshop
    March 16-17, 2024 10am to 4:00pm
    at my West Linn, OR studio
    Discover and work with your own personal and symbolic imagery with focused explorations in collage, doodling and claywork. Set aside what you do and don’t know about technique, deepen your relationship with the materials and yourself as an artist, and practice ways of mining the riches of the unconscious. We begin with nearly a full day of collage, exploring image vocabulary and discuss how to make the most of your creative process. A sequence of doodling exercises invites essential artistic style expressed in the language of line, color and shape. Clay exercises build on vocabulary and style in 3-dimensional form. We complete and integrate the workshop experience with deeper clay exploration or by making an image journal. Be prepared to come away with a blast of creative momentum! All levels welcome. No experience necessary.
    $350 includes materials. Limited enrollment.
    Info & registration: sara.swink@gmail.com.

    Totemic Sculpture, Stacking & Narrative Clay Sculpture 4-Day Summer Workshop
    August 2-5, 2024 10 am–3 or 4 pm (plus open studio hours) in West Linn, OR.
    A totem is one or more objects that helps tell the story of an individual or group. Totems, like shrines and other empowered objects, are a way to zero in on what inspires you and is meaningful. In this workshop, we will employ exercises such as collage on paper and sketching in clay to collect and play with images, ideas, stories, forms and surfaces that you might want to incorporate. From there you will develop design directions for totems to make during the workshop and beyond. You may end up with a number of standalone sculptural pieces or pieces and parts for a stacking totem, and certainly ideas for future creations. You’re invited to scale your work to a size that best suits your objectives for the week and comfort level, and within that scale, I will provide guidance and suggestions for construction. We’ll look at a couple of approaches to stacking totems that are key to the design process.
    Handbuilding experience is recommended. (You're familiar with pinch, coil, slab) Limited enrollment. Full vax please.
    $675 includes materials.
    Please note: pieces can be bisque fired for an additional charge after the workshop when they have had a chance to dry fully. Bisque-fired pieces will be kept for a limited time. You’re welcome to come back for one or more studio classes or for a scheduled session to glaze your pieces. Post-workshop class time and glaze firing are additional.