1-Week Pottery Retreat - August 10 -16, 2025 with Sarah Pike

Join Sarah Pike in a five day slabbuilding intensive for a deep dive into slabbuilding and texturing techniques. We will begin with simple slab construction techniques and the making of hand-carved texture tools. Throughout the week Sarah will demonstrate how she stretches, alters, and adds components to make a variety of functional slabbuilt forms. Students will explore these techniques and develop a toolbox of texture tools and slabbuilding designs of their own. Throughout the week, we will immerse ourselves in the beautiful natural landscape of Fogo Island for inspiration.

I am a full time potter living and making pots in Fernie, British Columbia, Canada. I make functional slab-built pottery in my home studio on a an acre of land on the edge of a little ski town. I live in a renovated old mining house with my husband, two kids and a dog named Enzo. 

I majored in ceramics at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I was then a student at Colorado University in Boulder and went on to do graduate studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (which I never completed…because life happened and I had a baby!) Along the way I started a family, lived in a barn and helped run my husband's family ranch. Ten years ago we decided to make the big move to Fernie, BC. Saying goodbye to the ranch and cows was tough, but it opened the door to more studio time. Of course, living in a mountain town, we take breaks for big snow days in the winter and mountain-biking and lake days in the summer.