Tuesdays, April 1 – May 20, 2025
6:00 – 9:00 PM

Instructor

Dan Clauson

Location

Room 117, Ceramics Studio
Ages

Adults, 17
Registration Cost

$295
for 8 weeks

About the class

“Art in an Emergency” is the subtitle to the book “Funny Weather” by Olivia Laing, published in April 2020 during the peak beginnings of the COVID pandemic, within Trumps first presidency, as well as during Brexit. It is a collection of fragments, essays, love letters, and memories that encompass “the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century”. Laing’s collection revolves around the necessity of art in an emergency. That art is more than ever necessary for survival.

This 8 week class will be following the determination, investigation, and feverish need that “Art in an Emergency” depicts. Participants will explore idea generating, building fast techniques, as well as demos on building/altering forms to create pieces influenced by what we know as the body. Each student will choose a part of the body to focus on and will be guided through the class with that fragment in mind. There will be drawing exercises, readings, explorations in repetitive movements with clay, and continuously a return to the body.

With a focus on Clay and the body, this course will dive into:

Clay as a somatic receiver
Ceramics as conservation for our [social]ecosystems/bodys/lived experiences
Ceramics as connector to our history and our dreamed future
and clay as teacher in transformation. Navigating these modes of intentional making, we will center the questions of ‘how can art save us in a political emergency?’ ‘What do we create in an emergency?’