Workshops
Dennis Meiners is available to teach workshops at colleges, studios and conferences. You can contact Dennis about scheduling.
Pursuing Narrative Surfaces for Expressive Pots
Dennis’ workshop presentations typically focus on the possibilities that arise from making slabs by hand, rather than with machines, and demonstrate the advantages of this process for discovering what we each have to say through the ceramic process. This is a simple, fun, low-tech way to use clay. Dennis demonstrates scoring, stretching, stamping, sprigging, and overlays that he uses to produce what he refers to as psychodramas on the surfaces of his utilitarian and sculptural pots hand-built from slabs. Workshop participants have the opportunity to see a way of working with clay that requires little other than a good table, homemade tools, and an ability to be observant and open to what the art-making process offers.
Comments received regarding Dennis’ presentations at Hummingbird Studios:
“Hopes and expectations well met…affirmed my creativity… would recommend to others”
-David from Ashland
“Dennis, I appreciate your willingness to share your techniques, philosophy, and methods that have taken you so long to discover and make your own.”
Patrick from Portland
“We came away with a lot of great inspirations for explorations in clay and art. We’re going to set up a permanent spot in the basement to do slab lobbing. Our drive home was interesting in a new way, we saw all kinds of textures, our new word for road cut. Even the wooded hillsides seemed to take on new dimensions…”
Forrest and Sandy from Portland
“I observed that ‘dance’ of gently touching clay. I came to watch Dennis work and enjoyed his rhythm and attitudes.”
Gwen from Grants Pass
Comments received regarding Dennis’ presentation at the 2012 Potters Council Altered Ceramics Conference in September, held in San Diego:
“I thought that Dennis was fantastic!”
“Dennis packed his workshop with tons of projects and information.”
“We would be interested in Dennis Meiners doing a workshop on more of his techniques, especially incorporating sculptural elements.”
Additional Information
Dennis Meiners earned a BA in Fine Arts from Washington State University in 1973, and has been a full time studio potter, mostly, since then. He has taught at Portland Community College, Oregon College of Art and Craft, as well as many workshops and classes. He has published articles and photographs in numerous books and magazines, and has pieces in several public and private collections, including Racine Arts Museum and the Washington Cultural Trust. For the last 15 years he has lived near Jacksonville Oregon where he built a strawbale house and adobe studio with his wife, painter and former clay artist, Leslie Lee.
