Woodfire: Ancient Methods & Contemporary Applications

with Henry Crissman & Virginia Rose Torrence
CERAMICS 660 001 | 3 credits | $300 Lab Fee
June 1–14, 2025

This course will explore the many histories, methods, and potentials of using wood as fuel to heat and transform clay into ceramic. Presentations will survey ceramic science, the history and logic of kiln design, and the range of objects made with wood fired kilns. Demonstrations will include handbuilding and wheel throwing techniques as well as experimental methods with found ceramic materials and objects. Films and readings including Maria Martinez: Indian Pottery of San Ildefonso and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass will offer insights as we engage and form the material of the Earth. Conversations throughout will aim to assist students in finding creative agency with ceramics. Students will work on independent projects and the class will culminate in a nearly two day long firing of Ox-Bow’s 50 cubic foot catenary-arch wood-kiln; a massive group effort that will involve loading the kiln, and methodically stoking it with wood for the duration of the firing until our desired temperature is reached throughout. While the kiln cools we’ll explore ways in which the techniques covered might be applied outside of the workshop, and build and fire a small and temporary kiln which students could easily recreate independently. Once cool, the big kiln will be unloaded and cleaned, results will be finished and analyzed, and we'll hold an exhibit of the works created.

Henry James Haver Crissman (he/him) is an artist and educator who thinks of his art as a means, not an end. Crissman earned a BFA in Craft from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan in 2012, and a MFA in Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, New York in 2015. He now lives and works in Hamtramck, Michigan where he and his wife and fellow artist, Virginia Rose Torrence, founded and co-direct Ceramics School, a community ceramics studio and artist residency. He regards teaching as an integral aspect of his creative practice, and in addition to teaching at Ceramics School, he is currently an adjunct professor in the Studio Art and Craft Department at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.

Virginia Rose Torrence (she/her) co-owns, operates, and teaches at Ceramics School, a community ceramics studio and Artist Residency in Hamtramck, Michigan. Virginia’s art practice is sometimes making pottery, and sometimes making sculptures. She received her BFA in Craft/Ceramics from the College for Creative Studies (Detroit) in 2013 and her MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University (Alfred, New York) in 2016. Virginia lives and makes art in Hamtramck, Michigan with her partner and co-teacher Henry Crissman, two dogs, two cats, and a parakeet.

Henry J.H. Crissman, Pretzel Theory, 2024, wood-fired ceramic, 12 x 10 x 5 in. 

Virginia Rose Torrence, Snake in the Grass, 2022, ceramic, 12 x 9 x 7 in. 

Henry James Haver Crissman and Virginia Rose Torrence