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The Vision Beyond: A Wild Clay Circle

Fri, Oct 27

|

San Francisco

Deepen your connection to earth and soil through shapeshifting and firing wild clay at this beachside workshop.

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The Vision Beyond: A Wild Clay Circle
The Vision Beyond: A Wild Clay Circle

Time & Location

Oct 27, 2023, 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM

San Francisco, Ocean Beach, San Francisco, CA, USA

About the event

Just as waves form the shapes of shorelines, our own hands can mold the earth into vessels that support us – with containment, protection, and nourishment. 

In this wild clay workshop at Ocean Beach, Fiorella Lema will guide us in ethically sourcing wild clay and interpreting the geological stories within. After learning how to process wild clay, they will guide us in basic hand-building techniques to create a small vessel or item of one's choosing. As the ocean waves roll in and out, participants will craft intentions into their creations, work on a collaborative ceramic and textile offering, and fire their creations at our ocean bonfire.

Through hands-on clay shaping, clay firing, and storytelling, we will collectively:

  • Develop knowledge and skills to work with wild clay, including identifying it in your local environment, shaping it into your own unique creations, and firing it to produce different colors & textures, all without a kiln.
  • Cultivate a deeper sense of connection for the elements involved in ceramics - water, wind, air, and fire - as a reminder of our responsibility to respect and honor the environment around us.
  • Explore how creative wild clay ceramics can be a form of telling stories about our interconnection with each other & the earth.

Note: Fiorella will teach us about how to look and forage for wild clay, but we will not be foraging on this workshop experience.

Our Community 

This workshop is open to anyone looking to explore an earth-based practice in a slow and intentional way and meet like-minded people who are looking to connect with others. We will do our best to accommodate different learning styles. Please let us know if you have any accessibility needs (hello@wildawake.us).

Additionally, this circle is led by a queer person of color : racism, trans/queerphobia, ableism, sexism, and settler colonialist rhetoric will not be tolerated, and you will be asked to leave without refund.

 

What's Included 

  • Wild clay materials and guidance to make a pinch pot and experimental piece inspired by the Andean knot language system.
  • Bonfire snacks 😋

What to Bring 

  • Flashlight or headlamp
  • Layered, beach-friendly clothing for spending time outdoors, such as a jacket, windbreaker, hat, warm wool socks, etc.
  • A blanket or towel for sitting on the beach
  • Comfortable shoes for walking on sand
  • N-95 masks, if sensitive to smoke (we'll have extras!)
  • Container to pack your clay vessels home with you

Workshop Pricing* 

By all of us contributing what we can afford, make this experience accessible for a diversity of incomes. The range reflects the disparity between economic conditions in the Bay Area, and is designed for those with more wealth to cover some of the costs of those with less access to wealth. Thank you for giving as much as you are able so that people of different economic backgrounds are able to join our programming.

As you decide what amount to pay, we ask that you not only consider your present-day financial situation governed by income but also factors including historical discrimination faced by your peoples, your current financial wealth, your access to income and financial wealth, people counting on your financial livelihood, and the socio-economic conditions of your locale.

  • Partner: $65
  • Supporter: $55
  • Friend: $45

*Adapted from Dr. Bayo Akomolafe’s We Will Dance with Mountains: Into the Cracks Slow Study course with For The Wild.

Covid-19 Safety 

Please do not attend if you are not feeling well, have COVID-19 symptoms, or have been in close contact with anyone who is COVID-19+.

About Wild Awake 

Wild Awake curates immersive outdoor learning experiences that are rooted in connecting with and caring for ourselves, each other, and the more-than-human world. We believe that when we re-orient our attention to the time and space around us, we can cultivate relationships that recognize our mutuality and interdependence.

About the Guide 

Fiorella Lema (they/them) is a self identified multidisciplinary/multidimensional queer artist, ceramist, cosmic DIY myco-enthusiast, and science fiction lover existing in the Peruvian diaspora. They create art pieces grounded in a queer spiritual pedagogy, exploring ideas of creation, lineage, futurity, diaspora, speculative landscapes, ancestor worship, and myth-making and ritual. They hold a deep and compassionate commitment to create works that can critically speak to the relationship diasporic people have to the land, and constantly seek to cultivate spaces that can help detangle some of those threads. Their understand of ecologies comes from community members who dedicate their time teach others about the climate crisis, eco-queers who share their knowledge about queer ecologies through online courses/reading lists/workshops, elders that carry knowledge about Andean cosmovision as it relates to the earth, and community curanderas (folk healers) who have taught them about being in reciprocity with the land when you are someone who works with plants, herbs, and fungi.

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