Your guide to summer with Groundworks Art Lab
Adult Summer Camps
Why should kids have all the fun?
Our Adult Summer Camps are back and better than ever!
This year we’re offering camps just for the grown-ups featuring all five of our studio art forms. Spend a week deep-diving into pottery, or in one of our multi-studio crossover camps where you can learn a little bit about multiple art forms! All camps are five days (Monday-Friday) for three hours per day.
Exploring Texture (Hand-building Camp)
Monday-Friday 1:00-4:00pm
Dates: July 6 - July 10
Instructor: Greg Belfor
Location: Main (3750 Canfield St)
Cost: $300
Ages: 16+
Curious about adding texture to your work, but don't know where to begin? Join us for this texture focused adult camp. During the first part of the week, students will learn a variety of texturing techniques such as carving with different tools, additions (both with and without stamps/rollers), decorating with holes, and slip trailing. During the second half of the week, students will learn how to finish their pieces by bringing their textures alive. How do stains and underglaze play a part in highlighting texture? How does glaze selection impact the texture underneath?
Pieces will be fired by the studio and ready for pick up a few weeks after the camp ends.
Mugs, Mugs, Mugs (Hand-building Camp)
Monday-Friday 9:00am-12:00pm
Dates: July 13 - July 17
Instructor: Samantha Shaw
Location: Hill (1010 Aurora Ave)
Cost: $300
Ages: 16+
Summers are always muggy, so why not come learn how to make a beautiful hand-built mug? This adult camp will spend the first part of the week focusing on what it takes to construct a functional hand-built mug. The ins and outs of weight, drinking lips, handle placement and more and how that can affect your finished pieces. The second half of the camp will turn to surface decoration and ways to decorate beyond just glazing.
Pieces will be fired by the studio and ready for pick up a few weeks after the camp ends.
Repeating Forms (Wheel Camp)
Monday-Friday 9:00am-12:00pm
Dates: July 20 - July 24
Instructor: John Minkler
Location: Main (3750 Canfield St)
Cost: $325
Ages: 16+
Ever throw something on the wheel and want to repeat it, but you’re just not quite getting that consistency? Come figure out the form in this week long adult clay camp! In this camp, students will pick a shape and work on repeating it to learn consistency in throwing and how to make a uniform set. In ceramics repetition is key to getting the form just right. Come learn some techniques and tricks to making this happen along with plenty of wheel time to practice! This camp is all about the process and not about the product.
Students won’t keep anything which leaves room to let go and explore without the pressure of completion. By the end of camp, students will have a much better understanding of what goes into making a repetitive shape that will greatly improve their throwing skills for sets in future classes.
Monday-Friday 1:00-4:00pm
Dates: August 3 - August 7
Instructor: This class will be co-
taught by an expert in each studio
Location: Main (3750 Canfield St)
Cost: $310
Ages: 16+
Big spoon or little spoon? You don't have to pick in our very first 5-studio crossover class: Exploring Through Spoons!
In this Adult Summer Camp, you'll get a lightning fast introduction to our Clay, Glass, Wood, Metal, and Print studios. Each week, the students will be in a different studio learning the material through the ancient practice of spoon (or spoon related object) making (seriously, spoons are, like, 3,000 years old)!
Exploring Through Spoons (All Studio
Crossover Camp)
Summer Flings
& Other Things
Shorter classes for when you’d just rather be outside
We get it, summer is busy - between the barbeques, camping trips, family vacays, and outdoor events, who has time to commit to extended multi-week classes? In addition to our Adult Summer Camps, we’re offering a few shorter commitment classes to keep you tapped in to the studio without making you tap out from exhaustion.
Glazed and NOT Confused (2-Day Clay Class)
Sundays 9:30-11:30am
Dates: August 9 - August 16
Instructor: TBD
Location: Main (3750 Canfield St)
Cost: Pay What You Can (Suggested $85)
Ages: 16+
Alright alright alright… You have glazing questions, we’ve got answers. Week one will go over different glazing techniques including pouring, dipping, waxing, and taping. In week two, we’ll look at the results to see what worked and talk about what didn’t and why.
Groundworks will provide bisqueware pieces and test tiles to practice on. Here’s the catch: all glazed pieces will go to our Fall Art Market sale on September 12 & 13. All proceeds from this sale go to support our Partner Programs, so we thank you in advance for your donation of glazed work! Here’s what we recommend: since you don’t get to hang onto your glazed pieces, we’ll also be providing test tiles to keep track of your glaze choices for future reference. That’s what we call a win-win.
Scratching the Surface (1-Day Clay Class)
Thursday 9:00-11:30am
Dates: August 6
Instructor: TBD
Location: Main (3750 Canfield St)
Cost: $55
Ages: 16+
Are you lazing in your glazing? Sleeping on slip? Craving more carving? Let’s dig into it! In this one-time 2.5 hour class, we’ll do a deeper dive into surface decoration techniques such as sgraffito, mishima, carving through wax, and using slip as texture.
Groundworks will provide flat tiles in a variety of different clay bodies for students to practice surface decoration on. Students can pick if they want their final pieces clear glazed or left raw, and after a few weeks, our staff will let you know when your pieces are out of the kiln and ready for pick-up.
Mondays 6:00-8:30pm
Dates: July 20 - August 10
Instructor: Emily Riggs
Location: Hill (1010 Aurora Ave)
Cost: $140
Ages: 16+
Looking for different ways to spruce up your garden this summer? Whether they're dragons, fairy houses, mushrooms or something else entirely, garden sculptures can add a layer of whimsy to any out door area. Come make your own in this 4 week hand-building class! All levels welcome!
Fun in the Garden (4-Day Clay Class)
Summer Events
Visiting Artists Exhibit
Opening Reception: Friday, July 10 | 5:30pm-7pm • On view through July 29
3750 Canfield Street, Boulder, 80301
ARTISTS: Eunjoo Kang | Marilee Salvator | Pete Wysong | Susan Taylor Glasgow | Bebe Alexander
Groundworks workshops are special. They're intensive, focused experiences led by exceptionally skilled artists, offered only a handful of times a year and designed for people ready to go deeper into a craft.
The five artists in our Visiting Artists exhibition are all part of that world: Eunjoo Kang, Pete Wysong, and Bebe Alexander, all working in clay, Marilee Salvator, working in print and textiles, and Susan Taylor Glasgow, working in glass.
Ice Cream Social
Saturday, August 15 | 5pm-7pm
3750 Canfield Street, Boulder, 80301
Save the date! Our spring Pizza Party & Open House was so much fun that we simply had to come back with dessert.
Enjoy a summer evening where you can take a spin on the pottery wheel, strike the anvil in our metal studio, pull a print in our printmaking studio, explore the wood shop, and watch live glasswork demos with our incredibly talented instructors. Oh, and free ice cream, of course. More details coming soon.
Fall Art Market
Saturday & Sunday, Sept 12-13 | 10am-5pm
1010 Aurora Avenue, Boulder, 80302
Save the dates! This September, come shop gallery-quality work straight from the artists who made it, watch live demos from all of our studios, and catch a special kiln opening with fresh pots straight from the fire.
This is one of our favorite weekends of the year. It may look a little different this time around, but the energy, the art, and the community are all here. We can't wait to share it with you.
Mark both days on your calendar, and stay tuned for more details as we get closer.
