Wilma Baca Tosa Advanced Artist Workshop

This special workshop invites intermediate to advanced students to work alongside Wilma Tosa as she demonstrates her methods for coiling vessels, stone-burnishing, and etching. Wilma will share her experience with the pottery traditions of Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico, as well as her process for sourcing materials.

Working with terra cotta and terra sigillata, students will build vessels alongside Wilma. They will also use leather-hard clay forms to practice etching and burnishing techniques. To create an immersive experience, the workshop will be limited to 15 participants.

All tools and clay will be provided. Participants who are not registered with the Ceramics Program may have their work bisque-fired for an additional fee.

This workshop is intended for makers with intermediate to advanced experience working with clay.

Workshop Cost: $100 for adults and Harvard Graduate students enrolled in a course at the Ceramics Program, $125.00 for those not enrolled in a course, and $25 for Harvard College Undergraduates. Registration will open on Wednesday, September 16 at 10:00am.

Artist Bio: 

Wilma Baca (New Wheat) was born into Jemez Pueblo in 1967. By the time she was five, Wilma was experimenting with clay. Seeing that, her grandmother, Marie Reyes Shendo (who had learned to make pottery during the attempted 1920s revival), took Wilma under her wing and taught her the fundamentals of the Jemez traditional way of making pottery.

Wilma specializes in natural hand coiled and etched Jemez pottery. She's been etching her pottery since 1989. She says her favorite piece to coil is the wedding vase, because of the meaning attached to it. Wilma, and her husband Aaron has been featured as a guest artist for the Harvard undergraduate course, Gen Ed 1105 – Can We Know Our Past? (formerly Anthropology 1010) since 2016. This course visit occurs each Fall at the Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard; learn more in this article in the Harvard Gazette.