Posey Bacopoulos Workshop

This weekend Posey Bacopoulos gave a workshop at Callanwolde where she demonstrated her process for creating pots and then hand painting them with Majolica floral images. Of course, like with many workshops the participants walked away with more information than just how the post are formed and decorated. We get insights into the life of a professional potter and thoughts about how to best make our pots our own.

Posey Bacopoulos Demonstrates

Posey did not start off her working career as a potter. She was a school teacher in New York who took a pottery class because a friend was interested in taking the class. Since clay is so seductive that one class changed her life by leading her to more and more classes, workshops, and residencies. I feel that this exposure to many different styles of teaching, including her own in elementary school classrooms has helped to make her an excellent workshop teacher.

I was also very happy to learn that someone who spends so much time making such beautiful surface decoration has a real love for throwing pots. So often it seems that the love of handling the clay gets lost when so much energy has to go into the decoration. Not so with Posey, she truly loves all aspects of creating her pots.

She demonstrated and discussed how she creates and thinks about forms and how to make pieces that are simple and beautiful as well as pots that are seriously complex.  When she was teaching us how to decorate she reminded us that she doesn’t know how to draw, she just lets the brush do the work. She also gave us some resources to learn about basic design elements so those brush marks can look good.

It was a very enjoyable workshop and I highly recommend taking one with her if you ever get the chance.

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