Joy Brown Workshop
Sculpting with Joy - 2005
Joy will be teaching the coil-pinch-paddle method she uses to create her large, wood-fired figure sculptures. She will demonstrate the basic techniques and lead participants in a hands-on sculpting exercise. Joy will also talk about living in Japan and her apprenticeship, how these affected her clay work, and how her work and life have evolved together since. Due to the hands-on nature of the workshop, only 15 participants will be enrolled.
The workshop and slide lecture are being held in conjunction with an exhibit of Joy's work at The Signature Shop gallery in Buckhead.
Free to the public
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Joy Brown Bio
A child of medical missionaries to Japan, I spent eighteen years of my life there. After college in the United States, I returned to Japan to work as an apprentice in pottery for four years. In the rigorous discipline of a traditional Japanese apprenticeship, working with clay became a way of life.
During that time I was required to make thousands of cups, never firing one. Submission to the demands of this process tought me the technical skills, a disciplined concentration, and an understanding of and respect for the clay. It also taught me that my experience while working with clay is just as important as the finished piece. Whether it is a pot or a sculpture, ceramic or bronze, the piece will reflect the spirit in which it was made.
I now work in Kent, Connecticut, where I built a 28-foot-long Japanese style anagama wood-firing kiln. A year of my work is fired at once, in an intense 24-hour-a-day, week-long firing. The resulting warm rich colors and rugged texture are gifts of heat and ash to the clay, bringing life to the unglazed forms.
