This two-day workshop will focus on the techniques used to create Kelsey’s figurative sculptures. She will begin with building a hollow coil-built form and shaping it to begin the gesture of the piece. She will discuss the little plans you will make as you go forward to each next step of the process. You will dive into creating arms and legs that help show movement and emotion and begin to build a narrative as hands, feet, and objects are added. Kelsey will give a detailed explanation on how she creates cloth and will show a handful of different ways to play with the clay to create anything you desire to add. These demonstrations will include in depth studies on building texture, creating armatures with the clay itself, and creating a sculpture that captures a story of its own. While Kelsey works she would love for those watching to ask questions, come up to take a closer look, and touch things that will be passed around!
At the conclusion of each day’s demo session, there will be time for the participants to select something they learned that they would like to build with their own hands. Workshop studies on both evenings have the possibility to be one of many different techniques shown during the day. This could be building a hand, head, textures, eyes, fabric, etc. Kelsey will go over the process once more and then move around the studio to assist and encourage everyone as they explore the technique.
Kelsey’s demonstrations, as well as our hands-on studies in the studio, are all open and welcoming to beginners and anyone who would like to learn new methods for making.
Tools participants should bring: assortment of small carving tools, wooden sculpting/blades, and a spray bottle with a good mist setting.
There will be a break for lunch both days. Feel free to bring your own lunch or visit one of the many restaurants within walking distance.
Fee: $210 member/$225 non-member
If you are curious about Kelsey Bowen’s workshop but haven’t decided whether or not to sign up you may consider attending her artist talk. This will take place on Tuesday, April 8 from 12:30 – 1:30pm.
Kelsey Bowen grew up in the California foothills, spending summers making up stories and picking thistles from her socks. Her figurative sculptures are inspired by emotion, metaphors, and childhood memories and storybooks, themes that she uses to create a narrative caught between whimsy and disquiet. She moved to Montana in 2017 where she was an Artist in Residence at the Red Lodge Clay Center and an instructor at Rocky Mountain College. Her ceramic work has been exhibited internationally and in galleries from coast to coast. She received her BFA in Ceramics from the California College of the Arts in 2017 and is currently working as a workshop instructor and professional artist at her home base in Montana.
