Potters Talk: Contest, Stains, Classes & Workshops

Potters Talk

August 10, 2007

Mark the Date Highwater Clays’ Open House

It began with a dream, a dough mixer and a couple of idealists.

You transform that dream every day with your own hands, turning the Earth Best Clays into the world’s finest pottery. What began with ideal continues through the work you create and we’re proud to be a part of such an intricate artistic process.

Our open house celebrates the Highwater family. Come out to our Asheville store on Sept. 14 and 15 and enjoy discounts on books and glazes, drawings for merchandise and exciting demos. Meet the staff and owners, relax in the cradle of the Blue Ridge Mountains and help us celebrate nearly three decades of the Earth’s Best Clays.

Understanding Stains

Click here to download HWC's stain reference sheet, including several exclusive formulas from Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts.

Highwater Clays Gets Around Contest

Our clays sure get around.

Word of mouth has gained us customers from the Pacific Rim to the rocky cast of Maine – and we’ve just begun!

Longtime Highwater customer Greg Vineyard gets around, too. The Los Angeles resident has followed his unique artistic vision all of his life, working with everything from clay to mixed media. Vineyard wears his passion on his sleeve, as you can tell by the photo below, and now you can benefit from his commitment to Highwater Clays.

The first reader to identify where the photo was taken wins a Highwater Clays’ shirt for him- or herself and Greg. Send your answer to randy@highwaterclays.com

Click the photo to load a larger version. Please contact us if you would like to submit a photo yourself.

What a Body of Work!

Leonardo da Vinci and Lindsay Pichaske have a lot in common. Both began their artistic career with a physician’s curiosity about the human body.

Pichaske studied to be a doctor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before beginning her life in clay. “My figures invoke a sense of morbid curiosity, making you wonder what sort of traumas they have experienced,” the potter said.

A former resident at Odyssey, Pichaske teaches “Living Forms, Narrative Pieces,” every Monday from Aug. 20 to Oct. 6.

Click on the image above to hear the artist describing her work. (Loading time may vary.)

Details
What: Living Forms, Narrative Pieces with Lindsay Pichaske When: Aug. 20 to Oct. 6. Cost: $185 with a $30 registration fee.

Making BIG Impressions!

Everything is bigger in Texas. Take the showman potter Randy Brodnax, for example.

A former all-American collegiate football star and current head of the Ceramics Department at Cedar Valley College in Dallas, TX, Brodnax is also one of the most respected and entertaining ceramic educators working today.

Odyssey brings this larger-than-life potter to Asheville from Sept. 14 to Sept. 16 for “The Unexpected,” a weekend workshop focused on firing techniques and surface treatments.

Randy has incredible energy and passion,” said Odyssey Managing Director Cynthia Lee. “He’s such a humorous teacher that he gets through to students of different levels.”

Brodnax is the type of man that could only come from the Lone Star State. Known to cook up a mean gumbo and spin an entertaining yarn while he’s working a bowl; he has been a potter for more than 60 years and has been featured in countless books and magazine articles.

He packs a lot into his workshops. “He doesn’t miss a beat, switching gears from stories about growing up in the swamps of Louisiana to demonstrating complex firing techniques and surface treatments such as Red Rust Reduction,” Lee said.

Details
What: The Unexpected with Randy Brodnax When: Sept. 14 to Sept. 16 Cost: $225 with a $75 registration fee.

Happenings!

There's only one!

The Grandmaster of Clay comes to Odyssey on Aug. 16 for a special reception.

James Watkins will be leading a workshop entitled “Environmental Inspiration” from Aug. 13 to Aug. 17 at Odyssey, but he will be available to the public free of charge for the reception and a slide lecture offered on Aug. 14.

Odyssey’s public slide lecture on Aug. 14 will run from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. and the reception on Aug. 16 will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. There is still room left for clay lovers who have not registered yet for “Environmental Inspiration,” but space is limited.

Click here to read the full story in this month’s issue of the Laurel of Asheville.

Open classes at Odyssey:
Aug. 20 – Oct. 1: “Living Forms, Narrative Pieces” with Lindsay Pichaske.
Aug. 21- Oct. 1: “I Can Throw...Now What?!” with Becca Floyd.
Aug. 21-Oct 1: “Mudslinging 101” with Heather Tinnaro.
Aug 22-Oct. 3: “A Fresh Look at Handbuilt Tableware” with Holly Walker.
Aug 22-Oct. 2: “The Sculptors Cup” with Eric Knoche.
Aug 22-Oct. 3: “Beginning Handbuilding” with Eric Knoche. Click here for more for more information.

Open workshops at Odyssey Aug. 13- Aug. 17
“Environmental Inspiration” with James Watkins Click here for more information.

Sept. 14- Sept. 16 “The Unexpected” with Randy Brodnax. Click here for more information.

Kids' Classses
Aug. 29-Oct. 3: "If I Ruled the World" with Sarah Danforth.
Aug. 27-Oct. 1: "This Little Light of Mine" with Sarah Danforth. Click here for more for more information.

Call Odyssey at 828.285.0210 or e-mail the director at odyssey@highwaterclays.com for more information.

Gallery News!

George McCauley’s work goes on display at Odyssey’s gallery in August. McCauley has received three National Endowment for the Arts grants and the prestigious Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence for the Arts. A working artist with more than 35 years of experience in the ceramic arts, he has traveled widely and been featured in Ceramics Monthly, Ceramics Art and Perception.

Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Call Odyssey or e-mail studio manager Dawn Dalto at studios@highwaterclays.com for more information.

Highwater Hints

We’re nearing completion on the new Web site, but our old site now has up-to-date prices. Every page of our catalog now has a date that indicates when it was last updated.