Relief Tile Imagery: Design and Production

Instructor: Richard Notkin
Schedule: Friday - Tuesday, February 18 - 22 from 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM -- Additional guided open studio with Richard Notkin will be available from 9:00 - 10:00 am (before class) and 3:00 - 5:00 pm (after class).
# of Sessions: 5 session
Location: Ceramics Studio
Student Age Level: Adult (18+)
Prerequisite level: Intermediate (some basic skills)
Tuition/Admission: $365 Member / $455 Non-Member
Supply Fee: $60
 
Class Description:
Learn to conceive and design ceramic relief tiles that reveal something unique about yourself, that tell a story, that speak of your passions, or that simply express abstract images or patterns.  A personal approach and development of a unique aesthetic will be encouraged.  
 
Students will learn the basic techniques for creating a relief prototype tile or series of tiles.  While the primary material for these prototype tiles will be clay — with subtractive and additive additive techniques — other materials and methods will also be demonstrated and explored.  Each student’s finished prototype tile will then be cast in a plaster mold, and multiple tiles cast from these molds.  Different methods of finishing the tiles, involving different processes of glazing and no-glaze approaches, will be explored.  This will be an intensive workshop, covering much material, for the ceramic artist who wishes to expand her or his abilities in reproducing ceramic relief tiles in both quantity and variation.  Mural construction will also be covered using a powerpoint lecture by the instructor to augment students’ knowledge going forward.   
 
Class Supplies:
Basic small scale clay tools. Full list will be provided upon approval of workshop.
 
Bio:
Richard Notkin is a full-time studio artist who lives and works in Vaughn, Washington. He received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1970, and an MFA from the University of California, Davis in 1973. Richard has worked mainly in ceramics for over fifty years, averaging over one solo exhibition per year. His series of Yixing (China) inspired teapots and ceramic sculptures have been exhibited internationally and are in more than 70 public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan. He has held visiting artist positions and conducted over 350 workshops throughout the world. Among his awards, Richard has received three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. In 2008, Notkin was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council, and was also awarded the Hoi Fellowship by the United States Artists Foundation. He is also the recipient of the Meloy Stevenson Award from the Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT, and the Honorary Membership Award from NCECA, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, in 2014.
  
Workshop Syllabus: 

• Day one: Choosing a personal story or theme.  Relief tile design and techniques:  demonstrations on carving, subtraction and additive techniques in clay, techniques incorporating other materials, etc.  Prototype tiles begun by each student.  
• Day two: At least one prototype tile finished by each student.  Plaster mixing demonstration.  Molds are poured off each prototype tile, with finished molds set into a drying device to prepare for casting.  
• Day three: Students begin to cast molds, design additional tiles.  Tiles produced are put into the dryer to prepare for glazing techniques.  More molds are made as additional tile prototypes are finished.  (We will construct a simple mold/tile drying device from electric fans and clear plastic sheeting.) 
• Day four: Various finishing techniques are demonstrated:  directional glaze spraying, underglaze rubbing, non-fired techniques, unglazed smoke/saggar firing, etc.  We will try as many of these as feasible for the time allowed.  
• Day five: Work continues through the morning session.  Afternoon session consists of a powerpoint lecture on large scale tile mural construction techniques, final discussion of students’ work, and final packing up and cleaning of the facility. 

Various demonstrations and powerpoint lectures will occur throughout the workshop to illustrate various techniques and show examples of other approaches to the ceramic relief tile by many artists working internationally.