Hosting a Workshop with Deb Schwartzkopf

Thank you for inviting me to teach for your group! In my 20+ years of time with clay, I have taught over 90 in-person workshops nationally and internationally and more than 60 online workshops as well.  I bring a deep knowledge of clay working techniques, surface development, small business skills, and creative problem-solving to share with your group. 

Topic of Interest?

Let me know the direction your group is most interested in. 
I can teach with a focus of:
1.) throwing & altering,
2.) combining thrown and hand-built parts, or
3.)  hand building.
The longer the workshop is, the more I can cover. If you have specific requests as far as forms, please let me know.

All workshops will have a 30-45 minute image presentation on my background and the development of my techniques and ideas. This is usually at the beginning of the workshop as it sets the stage for conversation throughout the workshop and gives participants a better understanding of how my process unfolds.  For multiple-day workshops, I can supplement learning with image presentations on professional development, setting up a studio, bringing inspirations into artwork, and more. The host needs to have a projection screan, a projector with an HDMI port, and chairs for participants. I will bring my own laptop with my presentation on it.

I would like each participant to have what they need.  For in-person workshops, each person must have adequate table space and access to a wheel. Each person will need five bats, a banding wheel, and basic tools. My Book – Creative Pottery – is a great teaching tool as well.  In prepping for the workshop, please see the workshop tool list for participants and myself.

Potential Workshop Description: (This is just a sample)

Join Deb Schwartzkopf for a clay based, three-day workshop.  Demonstrations will approach the functional vessel from a standpoint of shape. Hands on exercises will offer a chance to problem solve and practice combining parts and pieces.     Pattern or template making will be covered as we hand build with slabs. In addition, we will shape the slabs with coiled, clay bisque-fired molds we make in session. Simple thrown pieces will be cut and altered. In the end, all these approaches will be combined to making non-round, expressive functional forms. During the demonstrations, Deb will also discuss the way she thinks about surface and how it can change the way the form is perceived and what she intends it to communicate.  This workshop will offer many different examples of building with clay what will enrich the skills of both the hand builder and the wheel thrower alike. Bisque-firing for participants is up to the host organization.

Costs the Host Organization covers:

·       Daily Rate (Minimum 2 days in-person)

·       Travel Expenses (Airplane Tickets, Car Travel at a Federal Per Diem Rate, Ferry or Taxi)

·       Meals (travel days and during the time of the visit – I will submit receipts) I love group potlucks!

·       Lodging (Hotel or a private guest room in a home)

·       Materials for demonstration

·       I request to sell my books and pottery with no commission taken by host organization

Artist Bio:

Throughout my upbringing, the kitchen was a stage for experimentation, and the table, a place for generously gathering people together. Working with clay and sharing handmade pottery became a catalyst for conversation and creativity. 

I am grateful to say that my path was guided by amazing mentors. I grew my intention, technical skills, and defined my artistic voice through academic training. Working for potters inspired me to be an autonomous business owner, to creatively and efficiently set and solve goals, and to be indispensable to my community. This strong foundation has allowed me to reach and even eclipse my initial goals of finishing an MFA, participating in artist residencies, teaching across the country, setting up my own thriving pottery studio, and filling kitchens with beautiful handmade vessels. My adventurous spirit has taken me across the states and to a handful of countries, as I forged a supportive network learning, teaching, exhibiting, and creating. 

In 2013, I purchased property in my hometown of Seattle, WA, and began to establish Rat City Studios. Ten years later, I expanded and founded our sister-studio, Rain City Clay. Through these two studios, and with the support of an incredible staff, I offer adult clay classes, memberships, workshops, and community events. Ceramics Monthly Magazine awarded me Ceramic Artist of the Year in 2019. In 2020, I published Creative Pottery - 192 pages of instructional projects in clay.

Artist Statement:

I was raised to value both handmade objects and homemade food as gestures of consideration and love. Becoming a potter gave me a path to deepen and professionalize this sentiment. At the table, I gain a sense of place and relation as I assess my finished work and connect my studio practice to everyday living. This informs my next cycle of making. My pottery is art for living with. 

I invent shapes and place colors to encourage curiosity and a sense of discovery. I am inspired by the cycles and patterns of the bees and garden I nurture. Unfurling petals of the magnolia relates expansive volume to me. The inner workings of the hive, connective complexity. I also look further afield to architectural leaders, such as Frank Gehry, who challenge me to develop thoughtful relationships with space and function. The feathered volumes of the streamlined loon and awkward pelican are starting places for my study of form. I merge color signals from traffic signals with those I see in nature. For example, I place three red vertical dots on the throat of a pitcher, blending the markings of a rufous hummingbird with the pattern of a stop light. These and many more details are distilled and abstracted into the gestures, line quality, and surfaces of my work.

I am busy like a bee, tending to the details of life – trading eggs or honey with neighbors, staying on top of the weeds in the garden, keeping my studio practice vibrant, promoting my career, teaching classes and workshops, mentoring in the studio, and cooking delicious meals. This constant motion feeds my energy and excitement for life, which I strive to capture in the forms and surfaces of my pottery.  

Time spent working with clay or enjoying a handmade cup creates moments of focused attention. I want to create more of these slow, thoughtful spells by making artful vessels full of intention. Within the creation of my artwork and teaching practices, I desire to foster creativity in the lives of those around me.

In the stillness and intensity of my studio, I am free to listen, to redefine, to invent…  both myself and my artwork. As I was deciding where to buy a house, I made tea serving sets to focus myself and form a meditation on the place each piece found to belong. Learning to clearly define my expression through clay has helped me find clarity in other areas as well.  This reciprocal relationship between studio practice and life is generative and edges forward my ideas, artwork, and dreams.