Can the art of pottery can be taught online?
The Kawartha Potters Guild hopes to help answer that intriguing question with a pilot online learning course running over eight weeks during February and March, and is seeking new and experienced students who would like to participate.
Along with seven other not-for-profit pottery guilds and studios across Ontario, the Kawartha Potters Guild is participating in the e-Clay Learning and Teaching Project, precipitated by the closure of community clay studios during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the first phase of the e-Clay project researched new ways to work virtually and create person-to-person interactive experiences while working with clay. The second phase of the project includes pilot courses offered by the participating pottery guilds. Each course is being taught by an experienced teacher, who is part of the team developing the best ways to teach pottery online in an interactive and dynamic way.
The Kawartha Potters Guild pilot course takes place 11 a.m. to 1:30 pm. on Fridays from February 10 to March 31 at the Guild’s studio at 993 Talwood Drive in Peterborough. While students will learn and work in the studio, instruction will be delivered via Zoom by Aitak Sorahitalab.
Based in Toronto, Sorahitalab is a contemporary ceramic and mural artist, an art educator, and a public art researcher. Using background knowledge, she incorporates elements of Iranian and Mesopotamian epics, artifacts. and motifs as part of her practice through creating surrealist figurines and compositions.
Sorahitalab has a master’s degree in design and production in applied arts from The Art University of Tehran and is a doctoral candidate in environmental and urban change at York University. She has more than two decades of experience in art education, specifically ceramic, working with art organizations and institutes such as the Gardiner Museum, Good Sheppard Creative Studio, and ArtStarts.
The cost of the eight-week course is $406.80 (including HST) and includes all materials, tools, and glazing and firing. All students will be eligible for a $100 rebate after completing the course and the evaluation. A Guild member will be present during each class.
To register and review the course information and requirements, visit kawarthapottersguild.com or contact the Guild at administrator@kawarthapottersguild.com or 705-742-4979. For more information about the e-Clay Project, visit www.e-claylearning.ca.
