Want to enrich your spirit? Use clay and your hands to resolve issues of sorrow or grief and create hope and joy? Or maybe you just want to have fun with clay and take home something you’ve made yourself? There is no more inspirational place to feed your spirit and develop your love of art than the spectacular backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and the majesty of the high desert of Northern New Mexico.

The Cottonwood Inn invites you to join Peggy Papay, noted teacher and ceramicist from Tucson, Arizona for an intensive two-day journey with clay. This workshop will illuminate the powerful role that working with clay can play in enhancing our wellbeing. Through hands-on participation you will learn how working in clay can be spiritually uplifting– and fun!

No prior experience with clay? No problem! Peggy will provide you with not only all of the necessary equipment and materials needed to create your own art, she will also be your guide on a creative journey that culminates with you fashioning a vessel into which you can pour your hopes, your sorrows or your dreams.

You will learn a brief history of the use of clay in creation of devotional objects from the Neolithic through the great civilizations of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. You will be introduced into the nature of terra cotta clay and it’s properties, all the while getting your hands into this amazing medium. The final result of work will be the creation of an “intention” vessel or lidded box that you can take with you at the completion of the workshop and which can be your meditative object for years to come.

Shantal and Brantly, your hosts at the Cottonwood Inn, will provide lodging, breakfast, lunch and snacks during the workshop. The workshop will be held in the Cottonwood Inn studio barn. There will be a meet-and-greet reception from 4-6 pm on Friday evening in the Cottonwood common area.

Seminar & lunch package: $135 per person, includes clay and use of tools

Lodging & breakfast: prices vary with choice of accommodation. Guests booking the seminar and lunch package will receive a 10% discount on room rates for first 3 nights and 30% discount on any additional nights.

Please contact the Cottonwood at cottonwoodinn@gmail.com or 1-575-776-5826 to book your choice of room, or for more information regarding the workshop.

Show runs through April 2012

516 Tombstone Canyon, Bisbee, AZ

For more information, call 520-335-5481

Desert imagery artworks in sculpture, photography and paintings will be on display. One ofmy Agave platters was chosen for this exhibit.

Reception with the artists Thursday, January 26, 2012 5:30 – 7:30pm

Tohono Chul Park 7366 N Paseo del Norte, Tucson, AZ 85704
520-742-6455 or www.tohonochulpark.org

Located at Ventana Village Center on the southwest corner of Kolb and Sunrise Drive in Tucson, Arizona

Friday, Saturday, Sunday
February 23-26, 2012

Hand building functional pots with impressed clays slabs from plaster tablets inscribed with pattern, textures or drawings taught by Katrina Chaytor, program head of the ceramics faculty at the Alberta, Canada College of Art + Design. Check out this unique opportunity in the beautiful winter Sonoran desert environment!

Please click here for more details.

The first step in decoration is impressing the woodblocks into the soft clay, then they are placed in a template to shape them. After they reach leather hard stage, I apply a slip trail design to the surfaces. They are sprayed with multiple glaze applications then finished with gold luster glaze.

I take my inspiration from the Sonoran desert flora that surrounds my studio where I work.