Name: Intuitive Coil Building (2-part class)
Start: 2026-08-01T12:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-08-02T15:00:00-07:00
Location: Alchemy Art Center

Work with the fundamental hand building technique of coil building and learn how to create a functional, organic shaped vessel.
About this Event

In this class, we will spend two days building out the vessel, understanding how to shape our pieces not based on sketches but flowing loosely from our minds through our hands. We will cover the basics and intricacies of coil building different shapes to match our desired outcomes. The goal of this workshop is to let go of expectation and let yourself be carried by the movement of the clay, building something beautiful and organic in the end.

Students can come and glaze their work in our Wednesday Open Studio or pay a fee to have it glazed by Alchemy staff. Shipping is also available for students visiting from off-island.

Schedule: Saturday, 8/1 and Sunday 8/2, 12-3pm.

This class is held in the ceramics studio in the main art building on the origiginal AAC campus at 1255 Wold Rd. Directions and parking information will be included in your confirmation email.

This class is taught by visiting artist-in-residence Tess Aykanian. Tess joins us for July and August and is a ceramic artist and painter based in Los Angeles. You can learn more about her here!

Registration: Please register early if you are able, as it helps us to assure that classes meet their minimums in order to run! If you register more than three weeks before this class begins, a 20% early bird discount will automatically be applied to your ticket at checkout.

A Note on Ticket Pricing: We are offering sliding scale tickets in order to keep our classes accessible to as many community members as possible. There are three price tiers. Sustaining tickets help us continue to invest in programming. Full price tickets cover the costs associated with running classes. Accessibility tickets are priced below what it costs for us to run a class. If the cost of a full price ticket is a hardship, we encourage you to purchase a sliding scale ticket. If you can pay the full price or sustaining price, please choose that option so we can keep providing arts programming to the community.

Tuition Assistance: In addition to sliding scale tickets, we also offer tuition assistance for all Alchemy classes. Apply for tuition assistance here.

Image credit: Karen Gray