Mark has given workshops, demonstrations, and presentations all over the country including at: Haystack School, Penland School, Anderson Ranch, Mid-Atlantic Clay Conference, and NCECA. For a list of this year's workshops, visit our Upcoming Events page.

Click here to view Mark's suggestions on how to get the most out of any workshop experience.

Mark has taught many different kinds of workshops over the years. Here are some examples:

Pots for Pouring and Drinking
We will make cups, mugs, pitchers, batter-bowls, teapots, flasks, and jugs, and more, paying special attention to harmonizing their form and use. How do we make a comfortable handle that has some life to it; a spout that both looks good and pours; a pot that’s personal and does the job? The wheel will be our point of departure as we facet, pull, add, and alter our pots, developing a lively and expressive vocabulary of these most handled forms.

Handling it: Pots and handles
Potters spend a lot of time at the wheel working on the body of our pots, but making a good handle is just as essential to the overall success of the pot. We will make and examine all the range of pots with handles—cups, pitchers, teapots, casseroles, jugs, and more. We’ll look closely at a variety of pulling and other forming techniques to work toward making handles that feel, look, and work great. Special attention will be paid to designing the pot to receive the handle, and choosing the type of handle for the pot, considering carefully its cross-section, attachment, placement, and negative space, and executing it. Old and contemporary examples will be on hand for study and inspiration.

Teapots Etc.
The “Grande Dame” of pots, teapots embody the classic challenge of designing and harmonizing parts; lid, spout, handle and body must all work together both visually and mechanically. The wheel will be our point of departure in this hands on workshop, as we play with the rich possibilities of this form by faceting, altering and pulling and texturing the clay. We will get into the “etc.” of tea-ware, making cups, creamers, sugars, tea-caddies and more.

The Wheel and Beyond: Altering Thrown Forms
Mark Shapiro will demonstrate his approach to making functional pots, working both on and off the wheel. He will facet, paddle, pull, texture, and manipulate bottomless forms thrown on the wheel into pots that offer detail, excitement, and visual complexity. There will be opportunity for students to experiment hands-on with these techniques. He will share his techniques, tools, and enthusiasm, and experience of making wood fired pots for the last 15 years.

Critique Workshop
As we become proficient as potters the steps toward making our pots really compelling can be harder and harder to see. In this first of several meetings, we will take pouring and drinking vessels as a point of departure to begin a discussion of what makes a good pot--one which fulfills its intended function well--one which really speaks--the one which we always reach for. Mark will demonstrate his own approach in the mornings and the participants will have time to work in the afternoons. Sunday afternoon is reserved for one on one meetings with Mark to look at your work, discuss your concerns, and help find ways to move your pots forward.

Functional Pots: Developing an Expressive Body of Work
How can we develop the pots we make and move toward a fuller menu of forms? We will begin by looking at where we all are in our potting and ask how we can make our choices and execution clearer, more detailed, and full of life. As we develop the expressiveness of our simpler pots we will move toward applying solutions to more complex forms. For example, how do we find a form that works for a cup and then, apply it to a pitcher? How do we take what might be a great knob for a teapot lid, and reconsider it for use on a large jar? In short, we will work toward making a clear and personal pottery language that can be the basis of a coherent and expansive body of work.

Cups and Beyond
We will work on and off the wheel to explore a range of cups, from mugs to teabowls, to tumblers and chalices. Throwing sets of cups on and off the hump, faceting, texturing, and making handles that are both comfortable and poetic—this will be our focus. We will use the cups in the concurrent exhibition as departure points for conversation about these elements. The goal: to develop this most essential form into a personal and expressive pot, that might stand as the strong foundation of a broader body of work.

Improving Your Functional Pots
We’ll work together in the studio developing our visual and technical skills. Mark will show a range of forms and techniques in daily wheel and table demonstrations that students can apply to their own work. The goal is making clearer, better executed, and more compelling pots, eliminating the weak parts and adding details that strengthen the overall piece. Students will leave with plenty of ideas to apply on their own in the months that follow.

Pots, Plain and Fancy
We will begin by making simple, undecorated pots: cups, bowls, jars, and so forth, paying special attention to form, detail, and appropriateness to function. From there we’ll add some fancier stuff: alteration, faceting, decoration and more, with an eye toward how these elaborations can further reveal (and not obscure) and energize (and not exhaust) the pot and enrich the experience of its use. The emphasis will be on essential underlying sound design and skillful, sensitive execution of wheel work, and making what we do on the worktable or in the kiln amplify that fundamental form.

Working with History
As potters have increasingly been drawn to atmospheric firing using wood and salt, the correspondences between current work and earlier traditions are rich with possibility and questions. Working with History will include wheel throwing demonstrations and a slide lecture outlining the history of American salt-glazed stoneware with emphasis on the New York and New England in the 18th and 19th centuries, celebrating this rich legacy and exploring contemporary potters who are drawing inspiration from it .