Ceremonial Ceramics: Crafting Vessels of Ritual and Meaning
with Luka Carter
$250 Lab Fee | July 13–25 | Exploratory
In this course, participants will explore clay as a material of transformation—an elemental medium that holds narrative, symbolism, ceremony, and function. Using coil and slab construction as a primary sculptural language, students will create ritual vessels and altar objects that reflect personal and collective mythologies. Demonstrations will include coil building, pinching and paddling, carving, sgraffito, slip layering, and low-fire terracotta techniques. Participants will also harvest local clay from a nearby beach, process it, and transform part of it into terra sigillata—connecting their work to place, process, and the alchemy of the elements.
We will look to Guatemalan incense burners, Mexican ceremonial vessels, Chinese Neolithic pottery, and Japanese Jomon works to understand how clay has long been used to invoke the sacred and embody story. Contemporary references will include Akio Takamori, Nicole Cherubini, Simone Leigh, and Rose B. Simpson. Readings from Ceramics in the Expanded Field and viewings from At Home: Artists in Conversation featuring Sonia Boyce and Simone Leigh will help frame clay as both a spiritual and political medium.
Assignments will invite participants to develop a personal visual language through intuitive, symbolic making. Students will create small talismanic forms, trace and translate shadows into vessel designs, and use site-harvested terra sigillata for surface development. The course will culminate in a collective, ceremonial installation—a gathering of vessels as offerings that honor narrative, transformation, and the unseen.
This course is available for non-credit only.
Luka Carter (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans zines, furniture, tattoos, ceramics, clothing, and installations. With a background in construction and cooking, he has a knack for making space for art in overlooked or interstitial spaces––including an outhouse, an abandoned lot, and a van. Carter has been an artist-in-residence at Eureka! House, Chautauqua School of Art, ACRE, and Anderson Ranch. Recent exhibitions include shows at Spill 180, Brooklyn; Baba Yaga Gallery, Hudson, NY; Scope Art Show, Miami; the Baltimore Fine Art Print Fair, MD; and Manitou Art Center, Manitou Springs, CO. He is a Visiting Professor at Colorado College. His design and functional work can be found at Circles in Hudson, NY.