Alan Steinberg writes: "I was kidnapped by clay. In my senior year in college, on my way to another life, I took a course to fill out my schedule and it was all over. After nine years teaching in the NYC public schools, having spent most evenings, weekends, and a few `sick days' in the clay studio, I left my safe, tenured position to be a full-time self-supporting artist. I now look back with gratitude and awe that I've been able to support myself and my family doing something I love. Gradually, I've come to realize this work has been my therapy, not in the sense of fixing something broken, but like a fruit ripening. The pots or sculptures I've created have all been metaphors for myself learning who I am."
This workshop is dedicated to the process of helping artists, (self-described or not) to learn how to search for themselves through their art. "We'll begin with a zen koan, take out 1000 lbs of clay and do some silent warm-ups. We'll work and play, inspired by poems and stories, stopping to look at and enjoy each others work and to share how it feels, then taking the work further and deeper. We'll meditate, breathe deeply, and stretch as we learn how to pinch a pot and experience our life force simultaneously. We'll connect with natural allies in the plant and animal world. We'll channel the energy of the earth up through our roots/feet and expressing that energy through the clay. "From dust we come and to dust we shall return." "Dust" may be a mistranslation of the original Hebrew word for clay. We'll explore and heal feelings of grief and fear, through a deep-woods ritual as we follow the Yahi Indian Warrior 's wisdom to "always keep death on our left shoulders." We'll imagine our way home, from our bodies into the clay body, into the stone body of our mother, the earth, into the body of our father, the sun, and back into our original bodies in the stars.
We'll come away with an enlivened confidence in our innate abilities to contact our own Muses and a deepened sense of our creativity as our greatest human contribution to the on-going mystery of Creation."
Alan Steinberg has been a full-time clay artist for 25 years after teaching in public schools for ten. His work is shown in many fine galleries and craft exhibits. He has worked with a long list of well-known people in the clay world such as Paul Soldner, Paulus Berensohn, and George Kokis. He loves the medium and we're honored to share his enthusiasm with you. This workshop is appropriate for people of all skill levels. Clay will be provided and there is a separate materials fee of $25. Enrollment is limited to 16, so sign up early.Interesting, odd, funny, appropriate, how working with clay and a few verbal suggestions or rituals can take someone so deep. Will I be back? Absolutely!! - Claudia Teachman-Blocher