Summer Workshop with Vince Pitelka

This summer I attended a wonderful workshop given by Vince Pitelka. For a week we learned how to add colorants to clay and create "loaves" of different patterns with various colors. The colored clay usually was layered into different colors, then sliced and rearranged to make patterns. In this photo Vince is demonstrating how to make a basket weave loaf.

It was a particularly hot time in the Pacific Northwest with temperatures approaching 100 degrees and from this photo of Vince you can see that we were very warm inside the barn where we

met.

Vince, by the way, was a wonderful workshop presenter with lots of patience for those of us who kept slicing our clay in the wrong direction.

Here are a couple of photos of my first attempt at using the colored clay loaves made during the workshop. They have yet to be glaze fired so there is still room for failure - but I'm hopeful.