Classes

I love to share the experience of connecting with self through the earthy grounding work of forming and firing clay. 

"It's the clay we are forming, and ourselves as well"  

PAULUS BERHENSON 

PINCH POTTERY AND THE COLOR OF CLAY

Small Cone 6 Soda Classes @ The Clay Compound. 

Eight Weeks - Two Firings

cost: $375 and $50 kiln fee.  Part 1 is a pre-requisite for part two with some exceptions. 

Intro Part  1: September 7th - October 26th, 8 weeks.  

Saturday Mornings 9:30 - 12:30.  

Introduction to Cone 6 Soda Part 1: clay bodies, slips, glazes, atmosphere, reduction/ oxidation and soda.  This course engages the multiplicity of variables involved in soda firing. 

sign up now to be included in the  fall 2024 class of six students.

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For more information email chrisbaskinstudio@chrisbaskin.com

Reserve your spot with a $215 deposit to @Chris-Baskin-2 Venmo.

Above: students and kiln in Introduction to Cone 6 soda class, summer 2024


Intro Part  2

Intro Soda Part 2: September 7th - October 26th, 8 weeks.  9:30 -12:30 mornings, or 1:30 -4:30pm

Cost $375 + $50 firing and materials fee - 2 bisque and 2 soda firings.

Deepen your engagement with soda firing and forming a particular vision for the work.  This is five weeks and two firings to bring together a palette of clay, color, and myriad soda surface possibilities  together with your own forms and ideas.  Included with conversation and feedback on finding and exploring aspects - technical and conceptual - that you want to develop.

POETICS OF CLAY AND PERSON: FORMING CLAY FORMING SELF

Integral Formation class:   forming clay / forming self.     ---    for beginners with clay or integral theory

Practices in personal formation -- in parallel with forming clay.  

Join me for a series of practices and conversations in my home studio on SE Liebe Street. This material brings together the formation of ideas  and person-hood ( non material stuff) with the formation of clay ( matter).   Join with a small group of others to consider and converse about interior and exterior,  matter and spirit, clay traditions and - religious, psychological, spiritual, and developmental - traditions. 

"Integral studies", provide a series of maps, tools, and questions to engage "life, history, meaning, and everything".  

Integral Theory seeks to include and integrate as much as possible of the wisdom and traditions of the human story told from an evolutionary perspective.  --- "Up from Eden".   It engages questions named in Gauguin's painting titled -- Where did we come from, What are we,.. Where are we going?  

Integral Theory offers a map of four quadrants of experience: interiors and exteriors, individual and collective.  The AQAL Map seeks to include all quadrants, all lines and levels of development, all stages and states of consciousness, and all "types" of people.  

Nothing has re-organized my perspective on science, religion, history, future, culture wars, and my own self, like encountering Integral Theory has.  I love to communicate about these vistas with people forming and transforming clay.


As a group we will combine idea and practice by using texts, readings, podcasts, and videos along with hand-building ceramics projects. 

8 Sessions, 3 hour studio times.  Space for 4 students and myself in studio, room for 4 virtual participants:            
Cost: $350.00 + $25.00 clay and firing fee.  $375 total. Virtual Zoom participant , $250.
for class outline and specifics email me:  chrisbaskinstudio@chrisbaskin.com

Fall Sessions 2024:  

1) Wednesday mornings, 9:30 -12:30, September 10th, October 30th, 2024

1)Wednesday evenings, 5:30 -8:30 or  6-9pm    September 10th, October 30th, 2024.


Contact me or reserve your space with a  $215 (in person $125virtual)  Venmo deposit to @Chris-Baskin-2  

Have a group of friends or colleagues you would like to engage this material with?  Let me know and times and places can be worked out.


Pat in the process of forming  a horse inspired by contemporary Indian Village Potters.

Left: Jan enters into a "Pre-Columbian" space with a swinging Mayan figurine and tera-sigillata. And Caleb has formed a Warka vase from the Sumerian Culture and prepares it for narrative banding.

Centering the clay on the wheel and centering  the potter at the wheel. 

to center here means to 

move the clay with the energy of one's core

so that it is easily takes on  new useful form 

On Attention:   William James: The Principles of Psychology       

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgement, character, and will.        ….  An education that could improve this education would be the education par excellence .


I can think of no finer meditation than focusing at the wheel.  One centers, breathes, experiences their body, mind,  and hands with the attention brought back again and again to what is right in front of you.  It's beautiful!  

AND THEN THERE IS             FIRE

reduction cool

PRESSURE AND FIRE combine at the right moment in the cycle.

side stoking 

adding smaller sticks to fireboxes in the middle of the 30 foot long kiln.

the firebox 

the front of the chamber holds an engine of coals that build heat over days and naturally glazes the clay pieces inside. 

Above photos at East Creek Anagama wood fire kiln, Willemina, Oregon

Small group classes

I can work together with you to create a small group class for working on the potter's wheel, for hand-building, or making work for a specific wood or soda firing.  I also teach a cone 6 glaze class to help people better  understand glaze science and chemistry and to see glazes form a multitude of perspectives.   

One to one instruction:    

Develop in your own direction and have personalized instruction and guidance. 

Design, direct, and complete your own course of study and or project.     

2 hour sessions, 5 session minimum.  



Please email me to register or inquire further if you have a genuine interest!        chrisbaskinstudio@chrisbaskin.com 

I love to share the experience of connecting with self through the earthy grounding work of forming and firing clay.