Figures and Totems: Handbuilding Techniques in Clay

Discover the ancient tradition of clay figure-making and learn to hand build small ceramic sculptures in the image of your loved ones, as a totem of remembrance. Sassy Park provides an inclusive environment to explore concepts of figurative and expressive objects in the ceramics’ studio. She encourages students to ‘be in the moment’, share stories, experiment, as well as develop foundational, handbuilding techniques.

Sassy teaches clay building skills including pinching, coiling, joining and slab constructions with artistic intent, and you’ll learn how to paint with slips, underglazes and glaze on terracotta and raku clays, to bring your work to life.

Bring reference photos of people and animals for inspiration to create clay figures of your loved ones. The course is suitable for beginners to ceramics and to those with some prior experience.

Selected pieces will be fired in the NAS kilns after the workshop. Please note, it may take up to four weeks after your course ends for works to be available for collection. We will notify you when they are ready for pick up.

* The course fee incorporates the cost for materials such as clay.

* NAS Short Courses are open to students of ages 16 years and over. The NAS Art Club is open to students from ages 15 years and over. 

* What to bring? Please refer to the list of required materials in the Art Materials field below. 

Sassy Park is a Sydney based artist interested in the history of ceramics, objects and ideas. Her work plays with the accepted uses of domestic ceramics and genres, including pots and figurative works, providing a contemporary take on what ceramics are and what they can say. Sassy Park graduated from the National Art school with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics in 2018. She was a recipient of the NSW Travelling Art Scholarship for painting and won the Muswellbrook Art Prize for ceramics in 2021. Sassy was an Artist in Residence at the National Art School Onslow Storrier Studio at the Cité Internationale des Artes, Paris, and undertook research in French ceramic folk traditions. Sassy appears in the 2023 Australian book on ceramics, Earth and Fire published by Thames & Hudson. In 2024 she won the Keramikkünstlerhaus Scholarship, Neumünster, Germany and was a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Students must supply their own art materials, please refer to the list below.

• Reference material eg photos, drawings etc
• A4 sketch pad or artist’s diary
• Drawing materials
• Towel and protective clothes (old shirt or apron) 
• Any ceramics tools that you may already have 
• All clay and other materials are provided 
• We recommend students bring a P2 KN95 disposable mask 
• Enclosed footwear is essential in all studios on campus.