Paloma Clay Studio, San Miguel De Allende, Mexico
Workshops - Spring 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.
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.
