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1.Throwing Marathon. Pietro Maddalena W
Throwing. Non beginners
January 1st –January 5th
To celebrate the new year, as every year we offer again a four days marathon for all those suffering throwing abstinence ! A “non stop round the clock” practise on the wheel with unlimited clay and loads of enthusiasm! Defining techniques, pulling and pushing, altering, cutting and adding. Round pots, oval pots, square pots. Handles, spouts, wings and horns all with plenty of Chianti to keep warm from the January cold.
Cost 500 €

2. Making Marks in Italy. Jan Edwards CG
Slabs, tiles and pots. For all
March 30th – April 12th
A workshop about line, pattern and colour on clay work. In this two week intensive workshop, we can draw upon the beauty of the classic Tuscan landscape surrounding La Meridiana, and historic Italian ceramics for inspiration. In the studio we’ll make pots and or slabs and tiles and explore a cornucopia of techniques for embellishing what we make. We can do some “plain-air” drawing and painting on clay. We will be working with traditional Mediterranean materials...Terra cotta clay, and Majolica or Coloured Slips. We’ll look at some ancient pots in Florence and in the old Etruscan city of Volterra, where we can see some local and historical use of surface decoration on clay work, from the Etruscans into the present time.
Cost 2100 €

3. Mediterranean Techniques. Pietro Maddalena CG
Throwing and hand building. Non beginners
April 13th – April 26th
This course is designed to improve and develop skills for both beginners and advanced students. Demonstrations in throwing will include a revision of basic processes, variations on the vase derived from a cylinder, bowls, cups and plates. A series of techniques for finishing forms with lids, handles, spouts and other alterations will be part of the programme. Other finishing techniques will include alteration of thrown forms, fluting, faceting, carving, slip application, and glaze application and decoration. All work will be fired in stoneware. There will be a two day section on Raku dolce/ Terra sig. which focuses on hand building, hold by Giovanni Cimatti.
Cost 2.100 €

4a. Naked Raku. Painting with smoke/1. David Roberts W
Hand building. Beginners
April 27th – May 3rd
Smoke & Pattern - An Introduction to Non Glazed Raku
Participants will be introduced to the diverse and exciting range of pattern, decoration and texture to be achieved by the use and control of raku fired smoke markings. Students will use 3 simple materials; clay, slip and glaze to explore: different textural treatments of the clay surface, mark making and surface pattern, use of slip and glaze as resist materials, use of sacrificial glaze, control of raku firing and post firing processes. It is intended that by the end of the workshop students will have had lots of fun and gained confidence in their use of materials and processes together with the beginnings of the development of a personal ceramic language.
Cost 850 €

4b. Naked Raku. Painting with smoke/ 2. David Roberts W
Hand building. .Advanced
May 4th – May 10th
The Vessel As Canvas - Advanced Non Glazed Raku
This workshop is intended for people with experience of ceramics generally and raku ceramics in particular and follows on from the introductory workshop. This workshop will be an exploration into the expressive possibilities of combining coil built forms with different surface textures, resist techniques and raku firings to achieve a personal ceramic language. During the workshop participants will use simple ceramic materials to experiment with a wide range of non glazed raku surfaces. Processes involved will include: coil building; different textural treatments of the clay surface; mark making, surface pattern and imagery; use of different resist slips; use of sacrificial glaze; raku firing and post firing reduction; post firing surface treatment. Whilst testing many different pattern and mark making processes people will be making at least one coil built vessel form upon which final and appropriate selection of non - glaze surfaces will be transferred. During the workshop participants will be encouraged to be very involved in the control their own raku firing and post firing processes.
Cost 850 €

5. Architectural Ceramics. Marcia Selsor CG
Hand building. For all
May 11th – May 24th
Stretch your imagination to huge proportions! This year's workshop will include a tiled bench for the park in Certaldo, a free standing arch for the garden at La Meridiana, a pair of columnar lanterns for the grounds, and a possible door surround. Participants will be asked to design mockups on the first days of the class and the designs will be selected from these. The mockups will be fired and can be taken home. The large scale projects will be made from local terra cotta fired in the two chamber wood kiln. Focus will be on large scale construction methods and designing ways to construct large slab forms.
Cost 2100 €

6. Altered Pots. Dan Finch
Throwing and hand building. For all
May 25th – June 7th

7. Soda fired utilitarian pottery. Michael Connelly CG
Throwing and hand building. Intermediate/Advanced
June 8th – June 28th
In this three-week workshop, participants will approach utilitarian pottery by exploring the contradictions and continuities of utilitarian ceramics. Students will analyze the interior of the vessel comparatively to its exterior and make pottery that is balanced both visually and physically. Using the potter’s wheel, various clays, engobes, terra sigilattas, and the soda-kiln, we will explore the possibilities of form, surface, decoration and function.
Demonstrations, individual discussions and historical slide shows will invigorate your personal making time and will help to generate questions. In addition, we will explore the vernacular ceramics of Tuscany, Italy, a culture that is surrounded by artful food, storage and wine.
Cost 2.900 €

8. Into the Tuscan Fire. Kristin Muller CG
Throwing and hand building. Non beginners
June 29th – July 12th
Come study pottery in the Tuscan hills. In this two week ceramic intensive Kristin will present principles of making work for and firing wood kilns. Topics covered will include: types of clay bodies, aggregates, glazes and slips and forming methods. Potters at all levels will learn about forms, textures and glazing that are most successful in a wood fired kiln. The group will make work on the potters wheel and learn how combine hand-building techniques on and off the wheel to develop a unique personal body of work that will be glazed and fired in La Meridiana’s Norborigama kiln.
Cost 2.100 €

9. Throwing for Advanced. Pietro Maddalena W
Throwing. For advanced
July 13th – 26th August
The course is intended as an opportunity for a further development for those who already have some experience with throwing and finishing. Each person will be free to choose the direction of his or her own work within the timetable of firings and demonstrations which form the structure of the course. For those who wish to focus their time on developing quality and skill in particular directions with thrown form there will be, from the start, a variety of projects from which to choose. The majority of work will be finished in high temperature stoneware and there will be opportunity to make raku in the second week of the course. Demonstrations in throwing will include a revision of basic processes, variations on vase form derived from a cylinder, ovoid and spherical forms, bowls, cups and plates, various lids, handles and spouts. Demonstrations with decoration will include: modification of thrown form, modelling and clay additions to form, fluting, facetting and carving, application of slip and various slip processes, application of glaze and various glaze processes.Cost 1.450 €

10. Smoke firing. Luca Tripaldi W
Hand building. For all
July 27th – August 2nd
The course is intended as an opportunity to learn and develop smoke firing skills in which combustibles – and the way they are burnt – become a major and determining factor on the chromatic quality of surfaces and decorations. Surfaces will be treated with terra sigillata and salts according to the temperature and type of smoking technique some of which will include a third and even a fourth firing. Techniques will include saggar firing, pit firing and sawdust firing.
Cost 850 €

11. Play the Clay. Frank Giorgini W
Hand building. For all
August 3rd – August 16th
Making and Playing the All Clay Side Hole Pot Drum
Explore the concepts and techniques underlying the construction and decoration of Nigerian pottery as handed down to Frank Giorgini by Abbas Ahuwan of Zaria, Nigeria. Experiencing the actual forming of pots and drums by traditional hand building methods. The clay is pounded and paddled into shape with hand made tools. The design elements resulting in a superior sounding drum will be revealed. African design motifs will be discussed. Surface decoration techniques include relief sculpting, incising and clay slips for colour. The final firing is a type of pit fire to achieve the smoke darkened surface. Each participant completes several pots or UDU drums during this trans-cultural experience. A special presentation will document the history of the udu drum and its journey into contemporary musical culture. A final joyous party and concert will feature all the participants playing the drums they have made.
Cost 1.450 €

12. Invention with Clay. David Gary Wright CG
Throwing. For all
August 17th – August 30th
Invention (in-ven’shen) 1: Discovery, Finding 2: productive imagination: Inventiveness…
Invention is our goal in this course! Students will be encouraged to think “out of the box” and away from their comfort zone and to create pots that are fresh, original, and relevant in the 21st century. Participants will exchange ideas and viewpoints about the creative process while discovering new and unique solutions to traditional pottery genres. The workshop will provide for students an opportunity to look within themselves for ideas, drawing on their own life experience and familiarity with pottery and its usefulness in the domestic setting, while looking outward at the Tuscan landscape and the richness of the Italian culture for added inspiration. Technically, students will throw, hand build, stretch, cut, fold, smash, reassemble, and use objects for moulding the clay.
Cost 2.100 €

13. Salt Firing. Jane Hamlyn W
Throwing. Non Beginners
August 31st – September 13th
Functional pots have a unique role to play in the arena of the Applied Arts because they provoke audience participation. We will make pots to be touched and when the user continues its creative life and fulfils its real function. Salt is sodium chloride, silica makes glass. When salt is thrown into a hot kiln the sodium vapour comes into contact with the particles of silica on the surface of the clay pots and melts them, forming a glaze i.e. the skin of the pot itself becomes the glaze. Thus salt glazing has the potential to reveal the form rather than to mask it. Obviously, the amount of salt used per firing is a crucial factor.. Insufficient salt results in dull matt surfaces, over salting can bleach out colours and melt pots till they stick to the shelves! Judging the right amount of salt is a matter of personal preference, related to the type of work and desired surface quality. Through experiment and experience participants will start the exciting discovery of the full potential of salt glaze.
Cost 1.450 €

14. Useful Pots/ Aesthetic Choices. Ellen Shankin
Throwing. For all
September 14th - September 27th
Potters, throughout history, have sat before their work and asked the same questions: Where to put the spout, where to puff out the belly of the curve, what kind of knob for this jar. Tradition has dictated many of the answers...but we are free to choose. We can look at the expressive qualities that come from all kinds of possible solutions. This workshop will look at the decisions we make, consciously or unconsciously, in bringing a form to life. All of the choices: contour, line, volume, surface, rim, foot, scale, gesture, add up to give pottery a voice...a point of view....an emotional content. Through demonstration, conversation, one on one instruction, slides and a few directed projects we will explore the expressive nature of clay in the realm of thrown and altered functional pots.

15 . Under the Tuscan Soot. Malcolm Davis CG
Throwing. Non Beginners
September 28th – October 11th
There IS soot in Tuscany! We trapped it in 2007 and will return in 2008 to trap even more, now that we know how to fire the kilns. We will spend the first week making pots, lots and lots of pots, for everyday use. There will be daily readings, demonstrations, exercises and assignments and lots of wine! The second week will focus on carbon trapping shino-type glazes: bisque, testing, glazing, and firing. And scattered throughout will be memorable meals (including a cooking demo), music, and visits to museums, ancient cities, wineries and a chocolate tasting. It will be glorious!
Cost 2.100 €

16. Clay Printing and Coloured Clay. Mitch Lyons CG
Handbuilding and printing. For all
October 12th – October 25th
Since 1968 Mitch Lyons has been pioneering his image making from a slab of clay. The first week of the workshop is dedicated to Coloured Clay, which includes firings with gas and salt. While the kilns are cooling we will do Clay Printing:
A slab of wet stoneware clay is rolled out a 1/4 inch thick onto plywood. China Clay slip is mixed with pigments (both organic and inorganic) and applied to the leather hard clay slab. The slab is rolled flat inlaying all of the coloured slips. Canvass is dampened, placed on the surface of the slab, rolled with a wooden rolling pin, and the pressure applied pulls a thin layer of clay from the surface of the "plate". Many Clay Monoprints can be pulled from the slab.
This unique and innovating technique will be taught at the Tuscany Workshop, intermingling with all the best Tuscany can offer. An experience that will remain on the participants memories for ever.
Cost 2.100 €
 

TEACHERS

GIOVANNI CIMATTI started his career in the 1970’ and is continually interested in the relationship between form and surface, resulting in a new variety of techniques in terra sigillata and raku, among others. Professor for many years at the Istituto Statale d’Arte Ceramica in Faenza, he has also been working and teaching worldwide.
www.giovannicimatti.it

MICHAEL CONNELY is a studio potter in Philadelphia, as well as the Head of Ceramics at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He received his M.F.A from Alfred University. Connelly has taught and presented lectures and workshops at various venues nationally and internationally. His utilitarian pottery is in many important collections.
www.connellypottery.com

MALCOM DAVIS "I first touched clay at age 40 and knew immediately that I had been a potter all along. I love to make pots! For me, the joy and the challenge comes from making objects that will become an intimate part of the daily lives of others - pots that will be held, eaten from, poured from, sipped from and perhaps even licked from. For me the making of pots is a way to celebrate the mundane rituals of daily life and to make them holy."
SHINOM@aol.com

JAN EDWARDS has a Fine Arts Education and soon became a Studio Potter. Her home/ studio is in Portland Oregon. She makes Unique, Useful Pots, Custom Dinner wear, Decorative Tile, and lately some “Drawings in Clay” for the walls and teach regularly. She loves to travel and give workshops, especially where lines, patterns and colours are involved in the clay work.
www.oregonpotters.com

DAN FINCH
www.danfinch.com

FRANK GIORGINI is an artist, designer, teacher and author. He has a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture and a degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute, New York. Frank is considered the designer of the modern UDU DRUM . His drums are used by the worlds leading percussionists and were entered into the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has held workshops worldwide, taught Architectural Tile Design courses at Parsons School of Design in New York City for 14 years and is the author of Handmade Tiles (Lark Books 1994).
www.udu.com

JANE HAMLYN has an international reputation as a pioneer of the salt glaze revival and is a leading exponent of contemporary salt glazed ceramics.
Trained on the legendary Harrow Studio Pottery course, she has continued as a full-time ceramist, especially well known for her innovative functional pots.
Jane Hamlyn's work is represented in many public collections, both in the UK and abroad including the Craft Council and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
www.saltglaze.fsnet.co.uk

MITCH LYONS earned his Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Ceramics from Tyler School of Art, and his Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree in Graphics from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. His clay monoprints can be found in numerous private and public collections throughout the United States. He has taught at West Chester University, Moore College of Art, Rowan University, Alfred University, and the University of Delaware. In the past 10 years he has led over 100 workshops.
www.mitchlyons.com

PIETRO ELIA MADDALENA studied ceramics at the West Surrey College of Art & Design in England. After several years of training, he returned to Italy wherein 1980 he established a pottery workshop in Tuscany. In addition to his own ceramic production, he continues to build, direct and teach at the International School of Ceramics La Meridiana. www.lameridiana.fi.it

KRISTIN MULLER has been working in clay since 1987. Her speciality is wood fired ceramics. She uses forming and firing techniques of Japanese origin to make contemporary work based on a traditional aesthetic. Kristin holds a Bachelor Degree from Southern Connecticut State University and studied independently with Peter Callas. She is the Education Director for Brookfield Craft Center where she teaches ceramics She is a Masters of Fine Arts Candidate at Hood College.
www.kristinmuller.net

DAVID ROBERTS, a distinguished English potter, has established himself as a leading international artist
in raku ceramics. David Roberts has transformed this technique into a vibrant and contemporary art form. His work can be found in public and private collections in Europe and America.
www.davidroberts-ceramics.com

MARCIA SELSOR is a respected international artist and a Professor Emerita from Montana State University where she taught for 25 years. Her work is in public and private collections on three continents and has appeared in books and magazines. She has taught workshops in Canada, USA, Italy, and Spain.
www.marciaselsor.com

ELLEN SHANKIN has been a studio potter in the mountains of Virginia since 1978. She received her B.F.A. with honours from the N.Y. State School of Ceramics at Alfred. She exhibits her work nationally and has pieces in the collections of numerous Museums. Her work has appeared in many periodicals and books of Ceramic Art. She has been a guest lecturer and instructor in more than 50 universities, art centers, and craft schools.
www.ellenshankin.com

LUCA TRIPALDI graduated on graphic art before working on sculpture and then been taken by ceramics until he opened a workshop in Turin in 1999. He is particularly interested on the evolvement of smoke firing techniques and fascinated by the qualities of the surfaces that these processes can offer.
www.giallocaino.com

DAVID GARY WRIGHT. David received an MFA from the University of Colorado in 1988 and a BFA from the Philadelphia College of Art in 1981. His wheel thrown and hand built functional pottery has been called "inventive, humorous, and provocative." His pottery has been featured in the best ceramic magazines as well as several books. David's work has been included in many national and international exhibitions and he keeps a busy schedule of full-time teaching and making pottery.
www.davidgarywright.com

BOOKINGS

To make a booking you must pay a deposit of 400 euro to our bank. The balance, will have to be paid four weeks prior to course starts

CANCELLATIONS

Cancellations will have seventy per cent of the deposit refunded provided that they are made 60 days before the start of the course.