Register NOW! for TASOC Winter Semester

Eric Alexander Santoli, faculty

The Art School at Old Church is accepting registrations for the winter semester. The variety of courses offers creative opportunities, workshops and classes for adults, families, teens and special needs children. Classes start in the first week of January and most continue through the middle of March.

A complete catalog of classes is available online and registration is accepted by phone, fax or hand delivery. Students are admitted on a first come first serve basis and a maximum of eleven students are enrolled in each class to optimize individual attention. The faculty at the Art School is made up of experienced, professional artists. They are all committed to teaching the breadth of possibilities within their field and encourage each student to find his/her own creative voice in a supportive environment.

DeBorah Goletz, faculty

Workshops and cultural offerings on the schedule include glass bead-making, a series of yoga classes for all levels as well as collage and a one-day intensive on self-portraits. There is a variety of opportunities to experiment with ceramics from wheel-throwing and creating functional pots for food and drink to sculptural and hand-building techniques and experiments in figurative sculpture. Many drawing and painting classes are offered to all levels of experience.  Classes in life drawing, portraiture, watercolor techniques and abstraction through color, pattern and mixed media are available to students of all levels. The Art School also offers classes in digital photography, printmaking, fiber arts and jewelry making.

The Young Artists Program serves students age 5 to 12. All classes are designed to encourage the discovery of creativity, with an emphasis on process rather than product. The program offers opportunities for children to explore a variety of art forms in a fun, creative and exciting environment. TASOC also offers sessions for children with physical and developmental challenges through the Special Needs Art Experience.

Bruce Dehnert

Bruce Dehnert
Layton, NJ

Bruce Dehnert. "Ingot."  Porcelain, Shino.

Bruce Dehnert celebrates the pottery process from kiln construction to the dining room table.  He is involved with everything from the stages of kiln-building to scholarly reflections published in pottery magazines.  While this blog post series is here to celebrate his pottery, it cannot go without mention that Dehnert’s practice includes the written word.  Before receiving an MFA in ceramics at Alfred University, Dehnert studied English at the undergraduate level.  He continues to cultivate a written life that knits together his creative outlook with the knitty gritty of ceramic art creation.

 

Dehnert has published in journals including Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, and Ceramics: Art and Perception.  He recently collaborated on "Simon Leach's Pottery Handbook" praised as "an amazingly detailed, step-by-step text for all major processes in ceramics".  A discussion of Dehnert's writing is included here in support of his stated desire that his pots "visually 'explain' something(s) of the processes that they undergo in order to be finished and used."  This interest is formally present in the finished pot, expressive of his desire that “the person using (his) pottery be provided clues, through subtleties in surface and form, as to the nature of these processes.”  These processes, scientific yet mysterious, are explored in tandem with Bruce Dehnert's vision for the usable work of art.  The form and surface treatment of a Dehnert piece before firing suggests where ash deposits should interact with the surface.  The surface then provides "clues" to the process and how to interact with the piece after  it is fired.

Bruce Dehnert. "Cups."  Porcelain, flashing slip, glazes, wood-fired.

The clay journey is ultimately mysterious, as a gust of air behind the closed doors of the kiln can be responsible for a shift in surface tone.  Having never built a kiln myself, I can only presume that even the placement of the bricks in this process can influence the outcome.  In his teaching positions across the east coast of the United States, New Zealand, and Malaysia, Dehnert has shared expert knowledge in kiln building- from laying the bricks to firing the work.  He currently directs the ceramic program for Peter's Valley Craft Center.

Richard Aerni

Richard Aerni, platter, 

white stoneware, 19” in diameter, 2012

Richard Aerni

Rochester, NY

The first artist to be featured on this blog is Richard Aerni, a potter from Cincinnati, Ohio who now lives and works in Rochester, NY.  Aerni’s informal path into art lends a fresh and striking aesthetic to his pots.  Formal clarity marries with multiple layers of slip and glaze, evoking an emotional response by reminding the viewer of the complex beauty of the natural world.   With no formal education in art, Aerni has embraced a potter’s lifestyle of non-stop work while supporting himself through sale of his work for 25 years.

Richard Aerni, Brown Vase, 

stoneware, 15” high, 2012

As this blogger learned from more thorough writings on the artist’s website at www.richardaerni.com, Richard Aernie was a geology major in college and was part owner of a restaurant at the time that he discovered his love for clay.  Perhaps these two facets of the artist give us more information than we expect; Aerni values the shared meal as well as the mysterious material processes of the earth.  Next we look to the patterns of ash glazes on forms made for the table and the clarity of his calling becomes quite evident.

While Aerni is surely a favorite potter amidst a wide array of talented potters, he is featured first due purely to alphabetical order.  Keep an eye out for the next featured artist!