Full Retreat Description
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Clay Stories: Building Form, Surface & Narrative
In this five-day workshop, Maria Moldovan will invite participants to use clay as a way of telling stories—combining form, drawing, colour and imagination to create work that is personal and unexpected.
Through demonstrations and individual guidance, Maria will introduce a range of handbuilding techniques, with particular attention to soft slabs, pinch forms and methods for joining and constructing more complex sculptural pieces. Participants will explore how familiar forms—figures, animals, vessels, landscapes and architectural elements—can be altered, combined and re-imagined to create their own visual narratives and invite the viewer to engage with the final piece.
Surface finish will be an important part of the week. Maria will demonstrate ways of bringing richness into the clay through texture, carving and drawing, followed by the use of underglazes, glazes and colour to bring the work to life. Maria will do presentations on how she finishes a bisque fired surface. Participants will have the chance to create small experimental pieces to try these finishing methods.
Rather than working toward a single prescribed project, participants will be encouraged to develop their own ideas and imagery. The emphasis will be on experimentation, storytelling and discovering connections between two- and three-dimensional ways of working and combining more elements in one composition in a balanced way.
Fogo Island is the perfect place where you can immerse yourself in a world where rough, untamed landscape and human presence merge and come together in a very surreal way. It is recommended to brew some ideas beforehand and prepare some sketches on paper, but participants are also invited to leave room for the new impressions made by the new and unfamiliar landscapes and architectural experiences, color combinations that are awaiting them on the island.
Suitable for all levels. No previous handbuilding experience is required.
Maria Moldovan
Maria Moldovan is a Romanian-born ceramic artist, painter and illustrator based in Arnprior, Ontario. She studied painting before earning a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Arts and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and moved to Canada with her family in 2013. She is now a full-time studio artist and teaches ceramics at the Ottawa School of Art.
Maria’s work brings together sculpture and drawing, combining figures, animals, landscapes and architectural elements in unexpected, dreamlike compositions. Working primarily with handbuilding techniques, she gives particular attention to the surface of her pieces, layering texture, carving, drawing, underglaze and glaze to create objects that feel both intimate and narrative. Her background in painting and children’s book illustration is evident in the distinctive visual language of her ceramics.
moldovanmaria.com
