Visiting Arist Workshops
ClaySpaceTC is welcoming two visiting artists over the winter months. Each artist will bring their own style and experience to the studio. The lectures and demonstrations are for all skill levels. The Saturday workshops require an intermediate to advanced level of ceramic skill.
Lecture and demonstration on Friday evening from 6pm-8pm. FREE
Full day workshop, Saturday 10am- 2pm ish. $75.oo per person $50.00 for Current Students both CSTC or College. Max of 8 participants
Maggie Bandstra
Friday February 27 | 6-8p
Saturday February 28 | 10a-2p
Maggie Clifford-Bandstra (b.1970) Bandstra is a multi-disciplinarian artist. Her paintings and pottery are nature abstracted. Her work uses movement and patterns to deliver a healing message. She encourages us to take notice of the beauty in the world around us. The unifying undercurrent in Maggie's work plays with ideas and concepts surrounding nature, healing, and the human connection. Bandstra holds an M.F.A. in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design, a Masters's in Educational Leadership from Michigan State University, and a B.S. in Education from the Loyola University of Chicago.
Artist Statement:
Making artwork is the way that I communicate and connect with the world around me. My work's unifying undercurrent plays with ideas and concepts surrounding nature, healing, and the human connection. The paintings I make are layers of dye, ink, acrylic, and oil paints that depict abstracted forms and colors found in the natural world. The viewer might find these familiar shapes and forms going for a walk in the woods, an open field, or in a neighborhood. These mundane everyday images become joyful and rapturous on the canvas. The shapes and forms are familiar but seen in a new way. Exploring nature in this way signifies our layered human connections to the world and how we as we humans move through our lives. Being an artist that creates images that provoke a smile is a delightful privilege during these stressful days.
Creating colorful paintings and ceramics using abstracted appropriated forms from nature is what my artwork is. Using traditional techniques to prepare the substrates acknowledges the early Arts and Crafts movement's ideology. William Morris says, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." Surrounding the viewer with beautiful colors and peaceful calming forms found in nature is the purpose of this work. My Connection series is about the connections we humans have and need and how we affect one another. It began in the summer of 2020. The circles and squares are the doodles I make on my paper when I sit in meetings or classes taking notes; they help calm me. So I decided to make them big. I hope they help to calm you too.
Instagram: @maggiebandstra | Website: www.maggiebandstra.com
Todd Springer
Friday April 17 | 6-8p
Saturday April 18 | 10a-2p
This workshop will involve both Friday
and Saturday, participants must be
able to make both parts.
You can also come on Friday only to
hear about Todds work and watch what
is taking place.
I have a strong sense of place in relation to my family’s farm on Old Mission Peninsula. The attempt to convey that personal connection through my work is an ongoing motivation and challenge. Drawing from nature is as simple as looking out my kitchen window. I explore the natural world and animal imagery through the process of working with clay and fire. Over time, I’ve realized that I’ve developed my own iconography of vessel, animal and natural forms. I am heavily inspired by the action of fire and the ways in which it integrates with these forms.
During my workshop, we’ll explore some of my personal iconic forms and discuss other artists and the iconic forms they continue to work with. Using a process of bricolage, I will ask students to work within my own personal iconography and the forms I revisit. Students will be invited to sit in some discomfort and be challenged to take a risk; explore something precarious or see old things in new ways. We will work with hand building, throwing clay, creating vessels and leaving space for other materials. The takeaway is for participants to explore recurring themes in their own work and how they can take them in new directions.
Instagram: NA | Website: NA
Nancy Gardner
Friday May 1 | 6-8p
Saturday May 2 | 10a-2p
Hand built, one-of-a-kind ceramics
All of our pottery is hand built out of terra cotta clay, decorated, fired, then glazed and fired one more time. The glaze is food safe, water tight, and meant to be both cherished and used.
Nancy Gardner is an award winning potter with an extensive exhibition record and with work published in The Best of Pottery 1 and 2, The Ceramic Design Book, The Contemporary Potter (Rockport Publishers). Burt (Isenstein) is a sculptor and college art professor. We have been collaborating on our pottery since our first son was born in 1988. He recently turned 30 and just got married. Wow, how time flies when you are making a lot of pottery!
