HANDBUILDING ANIMALS!

Service Description

Open to all levels, this class focuses on creating unique animals (real or imagined) from start to finish. We go over basic handbuilding techniques like pinching and coils, experiment with surface design / textures, and learn how to apply underglaze to give your creature more precise colors. Students are encouraged to flesh out (literally) a kindred animal, beloved pet, or conceive a creature to watch over their home. Sketchbooks are recommended for planning construction, glazes, and general note-taking. In this class, the focus is much less on anatomy and much more on personality. Teacher bio: Chelsey Pettyjohn is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in paint, sculpture, and collage. Driven by a need to create personal mythology, her work engages a specific collection of self-made archetypes and iconography. The world she creates is self-referential, and pushes the boundaries of traditional mediums. She is very interested in the juxtaposition of delicate and grotesque. As an educator, the quality she prizes most is freedom. Freedom to experiment, freedom to fail, and freedom to evolve. Working in clay for the last 8 years, Chelsey holds a BFA from Parsons the New School for Design. She has shown her work locally and internationally; exhibitions include solo and 2-person shows at ATLA, ChaShaMa, and Tennis Elbow, as well as group shows at Superhouse, Noon Projects, TIWA Gallery, Kapp Kapp, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and Foxy Production. Artist residencies include Hunter College (2019-2020, New York NY), Portland Pottery (2021, Portland ME), Salmon Creek Farm (2022, Albion CA), and Brisons Veor (2024, Cornwall UK). She currently lives and works in Red Hook, Brooklyn.