Paloma Clay Studio, San Miguel De Allende, Mexico
Workshops - 2026
January 4-9, 2026
Richard Burkett
Throw It! Better & Beyond
Join Richard Burkett for a lively workshop that's focused on gaining throwing skills and creating textures on your wheel thrown pots. We'll make containers with lids, and challenge ourselves to make great pots that pour. We'll explore many ways to make spouts of all kinds, and what features help a spout pour well, along with additions like lids, knobs, and handles that add both function and form. You'll learn new ways to alter thrown forms creatively and assemble forms without drying cracks. We'll carve some simple sprig molds to add low-relief raised images and patterns to the clay surface. Even if you're just getting comfortable with your throwing abilities, you'll learn so much more as he shares tricks he learned in his 50 years as a potter. Expect to head home with new clay ideas and the skills to make them!
January 25-30, 2026
Tony Clennell
Living on the Edge? Si!
If you are not living on the Edge you are taking up too much space- Stephen Hunt
Tony's specialty over the years has been sectional or composite throwing where he adds many pieces together to make one vessel. He has also developed a signature with the use of thrown, pulled and hand built handles. Extreme handles are his specialty.
Recent work has included gestural marks and brushwork for a tactile geological surface to the work. The maker’s marks and details of process are what he is interested in leaving in the finished work.
Rooted, raw, and storytelling through his hands always circling back to tradition while bending it into something unmistakably his. Tony plays with grit, humour, and emotional resonance. You feel the weight of the clay and the person behind it.
His goal in this workshop is to to help your work have an unmistakable edge. One that is about you and the work that speaks to you and for you.
From Tony: "Having taught here before I can tell you that all five of your senses(sight, touch, smell, sound and taste) will be awakened in this amazing potter's paradise."
January 25-30, 2026
Sarah Pike
Celebrating Slab Built Tableware
Join Sarah Pike in the beautiful town of San Miguel de Allende for a hands-on workshop exploring slab-built tableware. Sarah will demonstrate a variety of slab-building techniques and share insights into her signature stamp-making process.
We will begin our journey by designing and carving intricate, personalized stamps inspired by the unique beauty and cultural richness of San Miguel. These handmade stamps will serve as tools for adding texture and character to our ceramic work.
Next, we’ll explore the relationship between form and function as we dive into creating templates for slab-built cups and bowls. Through guided instruction, participants will map out their designs, considering proportion, usability, and aesthetic expression.
As we dig deeper into our creative choices, such as surface texture, form, and decorative elements, each participant will leave with thoughtfully developed blueprints and a deeper understanding of how to bring their own functional tableware to life through slab construction.
As a participant, you’ll learn to design and construct your own textured place setting, including a slab-built plate, bowl, and mug. This is your invitation to explore stamps, forms, and templates while creating textures and designing tableware that is uniquely you.
WAITLIST
February 22-27, 2026
Sunshine Cobb
Hand Building Explorations
Workshop fee: $1,250 USD
(for details on what is included, click here)
Deposit to register: $600 USD
Sunshine’s demonstration will motivate you to experiment with new and old forms and construction methods. Her workshop is geared toward creative expansion and encourages students who attempt to use these new and old hand-building techniques to embrace a process-over-product mentality. She will focus on ways this approach resonates with beginning students just discovering clay and advanced professionals who have worked with clay for years.
Her demonstration will include coil and pinch methods to hard and soft slab construction to generate the various components she uses to construct her pots. She will speak to the building surface through the making process and discuss her work's glaze and surface treatment.
The foundation of Sunshine’s work is closely associated with historical ceramics traditions. At the same time, she is an entirely modern potter with contemporary themes in her work. She will talk about inspiration and how abstract concepts make their way into her work, and how to foster similar insertion into your own creative practice. Sunshine’s demonstration will motivate you to experiment with new and old forms and construction methods. Her workshop is geared toward creative expansion and encourages students who attempt to use these new and old hand-building techniques to embrace a process-over-product mentality. She will focus on ways this approach resonates with beginning students just discovering the boundaries within ceramics, up to advanced professionals who have worked within boundaries for years. Not all boundaries are bad, but knowing how to open them illuminates endless possibilities. Her demonstration will include coil and pinch methods to hard and soft slab construction to generate the various components she uses to construct her pots. She will speak to the building surface through the making process and discuss her work's glaze and surface treatment.
February 22-27, 2026
Lindsay Oesterritter
Service and Use of Everyday Pots
Workshop fee: $1,250 USD
(for details on what is included, click here)
Deposit to register: $600 USD
Primarily using the wheel, we will make our favorite everyday forms even better! Cups, mugs, bowls, and more! We will discuss and explore the elements of these essential forms. Discussing how our own culinary and kitchen idiosyncrasies help to define the creative and functional choices within the foot, body, handle, and rim of each design. San Miguel De Allende will offer a perfect backdrop and opportunity for additional inspiration and inventiveness with every meal, as we think about and investigate these ideas around service and use.
Lindsay will demonstrate throwing these various forms and incorporating handbuilt finishing touches. As a class we will start with several variations of cups and bowls, and continue to add to and alter these basic forms with handles, spouts, decorative rims, and trimming. We will talk about each particular element involved in fulfilling the whole piece. There will be lots of time for experimenting with the details. The goal is to understand, personalize, and make better the vessels we use everyday. It is about taking the inspiration from our investigation into your studio and future designs.
Bring your sketchbook! Open to all skill levels
March 8-13, 2026
Claudia Olds Goldie
The Expressive Figure
Join us for a five-day workshop where students will have the opportunity to work in a supportive and inspiring studio environment and be encouraged to develop their own sense of style. Claudia, who is a full-time studio artist and educator with years of teaching experience, will be returning to Paloma Studio for the third time. She will share her extensive knowledge of sculptural ceramics and help each student to problem solve, explore, and expand their own vision. Students will learn to build medium size, hollow, figurative sculpture from slabs. They are encouraged to work from imagination, photographs, drawings, or any other source of inspiration.
Claudia packs her workshops with information rich demonstrations. Starting with a slab, she will build a standing figure using a variety of techniques that combine to achieve a structurally sound sculpture with a high level of detail. Proportions of the face, head, and figure, facial and gestural expression, movement, and design will all be discussed. Claudia will also demonstrate how human and animal structures differ in both form and construction and how the inclusion of an animal or even another figure can enhance the narrative.
October 26-31, 2026
Deborah Schwartzkopf
Cross Pollination
Join returning visiting artist Deborah Schwartzkopf for Cross Pollination, a 5-day ceramics retreat in the vibrant heart of San Miguel de Allende. Blending handbuilding and wheel throwing techniques, this workshop focuses on creating expressive serving dishes.Deb will guide daily demonstrations and offer personalized support as participants explore altering thrown forms, working with templates, and bisque-fired clay molds. Deb will also share surface development techniques with slip and underglaze. You’ll be encouraged to experiment boldly, refine your voice, and connect your studio practice to broader artistic pathways.Come for the clay, stay for the color, and leave transformed by connection, culture, and collaboration.Two of Deb & Joe’s favorite outings in their last visit to San Miguel were the renowned Mask Museum and the UNESCO site of Atotonilco. We will do our best to organize these trips for the group. Workshop sessions conclude October 31, giving you the chance to extend your stay and experience the powerful artistry and emotion of Día de los Muertos.You will get the most out of the workshop if you can throw a 5” cylinder and can center clay on the potter’s wheel. Come ready to experiment and draw inspiration from the fabulous city and culture of San Miguel!Running concurrently, ceramic sculptor Joe Wilkinson will be teaching a companion workshop for sculptors. While the two groups work independently, we’ll come together for shared exercises—such as making forms for use as molds, whether for sculptural repetition or thoughtful utility. Both instructors will offer image presentations, giving participants a window into their personal approaches, surfaces, and artistic journeys. These moments of crossover create a rich, collaborative learning environment—encouraging the cross-pollination of ideas between function and sculpture, intuition and technique.
October 26-31, 2026
Joe Wilkinson
Clay in Context
Working with an open and responsive mindset, Joe Wilkinson encourages an intuitive relationship with clay, allowing sculptural forms to emerge through curiosity, play, and thoughtful exploration. In this five-day hands-on ceramics retreat in the vibrant town of San Miguel Allende (SMA), Joe will guide participants in building abstract pieces using clay coils and hard slabs, focusing on construction techniques that invite spontaneity.In addition to free-form building, participants will create a bisque-fired clay mold as a tool to explore repetition and scale. This mold will be used to construct a larger sculpture composed of multiple components. These components can be uniform for a cohesive effect or altered for more complexity and movement.Nature will be our inspiration, with forms drawn from branching systems like river deltas, neural pathways, and or the outstretched arms of the Ocotillo cactus. Joe will demonstrate ways to build pieces that rise from the table or extend from the wall, encouraging participants to rethink orientation and explore new spatial relationships.Throughout the week, we’ll dive into ideas of scale, rhythm, negative space, and visual tension. You’ll be invited to play, experiment, and develop confidence as you create sculptural elements with flow and presence. Group discussions and image presentations will deepen the experience, as Joe shares insight into his own forming process, surface choices, and creative influences.
Running alongside this workshop, ceramic artist Deborah Schwartzkopf will be teaching a complementary class focused on functional forms. While the two groups work independently, we’ll come together for shared exercises—such as making forms for use as molds, whether for sculptural repetition or thoughtful utility. Both instructors will present image presentations, offering participants a glimpse into their personal approaches, surfaces, and artistic journeys. These moments of crossover create a rich, collaborative learning environment—encouraging the cross-pollination of ideas between function and sculpture, intuition and technique.
