Ceramic Science Primer
For all skill levels
Winter 2025
Description
Ever wonder how the varieties of clay bodies and glazes are formulated? Did you know that the materials we use today to make clays and glazes were actually formed in nature millions of years ago? Or how about the fact that clay and glazes are made using the same ingredients? This class will take you on a journey to the center of the earth and back (figuratively, of course) all the while exploring the chemical nature of the earth itself.
Students will explore with alchemist’s delight, chemicals with strange names they've only seen in countless books on ceramics listed in ‘recipes’. Perhaps you followed these recipes like a zombie not knowing or understanding why any given material was included. It's not like flour and water, you know.
True, this course isn't as touchy-feely as the ever popular wheel- thrown or hand-built pottery classes taught here and there's even some reading involved, in fact, there's a lot of reading. But don't worry, you'll be having so much fun learning how to balance the scales or use terms like ‘water of plasticity’ and ‘quartz inversion’, plus be able to explain with authority the difference between a kaolin and a ball clay, that the reading of a technical text will simply go unnoticed.
By the end of the course, you'll never look at a rock the same way again...and you thought it was mud!
The only prerequisite is your desire to learn, especially by doing.
This is a 3-hour per session course
Course ID: CSP-G
Group Class; 3 hours per session - 10 week course duration
Enrollment limited to 3 students
$2175 Tuition + $200 materials/firing deposit at the point of registration.
accepting enrollments
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Course ID: CSP-P
Class dates / times for private class to be determined based on negotiated schedule.
Private class (1) student only; 3 hours
$5200 Tuition + $200 materials/firing deposit at the point of registration.
accepting enrollment
Additional costs beyond tuition:
Kiln firing fee: 10¢ per cubic inch
Test kiln firings: $75 per
Studio clay per bag: $50 any stoneware; $75 porcelain.
Raw materials for testing: Variable based on the actual chemicals used.
*Conditions apply for reduction firing: Size and kiln space limits all assessed for suitability.
All tools supplied
Instructor: Frank Bosco