Earth Colors: Primitive Pottery Apprenticeship
Taking place over three separate weeks, this three-part apprenticeship is the most extensive experience in the study of primitive pottery. We cover raw materials, forming, shaping and firing. Discover the alchemy of changing earth, water, air and fire into ceramic vessels, ritual objects and tools. Create unique ceramic pots the same way our ancient ancestors made their pottery. Other scheduled workshops and private lessons are available.
- Form pottery as our ancient ancestors did
- Decorate your pots with a variety of earth colored slips and textures
- Pull red hot pots from the fire and plunge them into water to cool
- Discovery the alchemy of turning natural clays into stone vessels
- Stay overnight, sleep under the stars, dance or relax around the nightly campfires
- Apprentice with a master
Download the full syllabus for Earth Colors here
Register for individual weeks or save with all three workshops in the series.
Week 1 June 6-12, 2010 Raw Materials for Primitively Fired Pottery
Prospecting, harvesting, processing and testing various clay bodies and slips dominate this seven day course. These natural, raw materials are blended to adjust plasticity, firing ranges and vitrification. Pots are made and fired daily. Emphasis is toward identifying, understanding and using natural ceramic earth minerals and pigments.
Students are requested to bring a sturdy five-gallon bucket, 1/2 full of natural clay from near their home location. They work with this clay, in addition to other clays. If distant traveling is an issue, approximately a gallon of clay, tripled bagged, will work. Searching for clay? Check out the “The Quest for Clay” article at www.nomadicpotter.com
Week 2 June 13-19, 2010 Forming and Shaping the Pot
This intensive, seven day course teaches clay building methods, of which there are thousands of variations. Participants use the standard pinch, slab, coil and paddle/anvil methods, as well as explore the nuances used by both ancient and contemporary potters.
Student potters create ceramic cookware that can be used in almost any cooking situation, from stovetop to campfire. Ancient design and decoration techniques will be replicated onto the pottery. Firing, pot making and decorating takes place daily.
Week 2 June 20-26, 2010 Into the Fire: Firing Prehistoric Styles of Pottery
This seven day workshop guides student potters in understanding and manipulating primitive firing methods. Students learn to create reduction fires, used to make the amazing Anasazi-style black-on-white pottery that incorporates organic (vegetable) pigment.
Other topics include the oxidation fires that bring out the palette of earth colors. Firings occur in the mornings and/or evenings. Pot making, decorating and the chopping of wood for fires will take place during and between firings. Earth Colors participants have access to the Nomadic Potter’s library, containing hundreds of books on primitive pottery and ancient cultures.
Register for Earth Colors: Primitive Pottery Apprenticeship
About the Instructor
Estabon Fire’s interaction with clay began at the age of five, when he formed his first mud pies and laid them out to bake in the hot, central Oregon sun. Since then, clay continues to fascinate and inspire him.
College pottery courses exposed Estabon to his first experience with the direct firing techniques of raku and primitive pottery. During a fateful trip to Italy he was introduced to the beauty of the tall, water-bearing Italian ollas. Today, Estabon continues to travel the world, collecting, creating and teaching prehistoric styles of pottery. Estabon’s interests are not limited to pottery.
An avid climber of tall trees - 300+ feet - he has slept in treetop hammocks and scaled trees from the Redwoods to the tropical rainforest. Other interests include filmmaking, building tree houses, reading, hiking and gardening.
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