Ox-Bow on the Wheel 

with Liz McCarthy
$250 lab fee | June 14–27 | Skill-building

In this course, students will use the potter’s wheel to create thrown forms. Through practice and demonstration, participants will hone skills to successfully build scale and refine pieces in clay. Pre-Columbian work will provide insight, as well as contemporary artists which may include Shio Kusaka and Betty Woodman. Demonstrations will focus on centering, producing uniformity, and glazing techniques. Through assignments including throwing many pots in succession, students will become familiar with the disposability and ephemerality inherent to the medium and aim to master its spontaneity. This class will culminate in group critique and is open to students of all levels.

SAIC students: This is a 3-credit course; use the course code CERAMICS 656 001.

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Liz McCarthy (she/they) is an artist who combines ceramics, often in the form of playable whistles, with other media. Her work explores the body as an ever-changing material intertwined with human and nonhuman environments, often drawing from feminist and queer themes. She is the founding owner of the GnarWare Workshop ceramics school and teaches in the Ceramics Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Most notably, she has exhibited/performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, Goldfinch, Roman Susan, and Epiphany Center for the Arts, all in Chicago; Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles; and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE. She has participated in residencies at locations including Atlantic Center for the Arts, ACRE, Banff Centre, Ox-Bow, and Lighthouse Works and has received support from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, and Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. She holds a BFA from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and an MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago.