JUNE 2025 - 2 week pottery course with woodfiring
This June we welcomed a beautiful group of beginner potters — Amanda from Switzerland, Monica from the USA, Stephanie from Germany, and Yakeen from the UK — for an immersive two-week pottery journey in our Latvian countryside studio.
During this time, they experienced the full expressive spectrum of ceramic craft. From shaping functional dinnerware through slab rolling, to beginning their relationship with the pottery wheel, and exploring intuitive hand-building techniques, their days unfolded in a steady rhythm of learning, practice, and creative discovery.
Along the way, they also met our herd of horses — and it was there that something quietly profound revealed itself. Yakeen later shared that the horsemanship session became a breakthrough moment for her wheel-throwing. Observing how we centred ourselves before approaching the horses — moving with awareness, presence and softness — she recognised the same principle could be applied to the wheel. When the body moves in calm alignment, the clay responds in harmony. It is all deeply interconnected.
Their dinnerware was glazed and fired in an electric kiln, ensuring durability and function, while their hand-built pieces — created from Latvian earthenware and carefully polished — followed a more ancient path. These were fired during the summer solstice in a traditional Latvian reduction wood-firing, led by our dear friend Matilde Laura Ikerte at her kiln near Baltā Māja, just a short five-minute drive from our studio.
This firing process infused each vessel with warmth and individuality. Black, in this context, is never simply black — the flames danced along the pot walls, leaving organic traces and patterns formed by smoke, ash and heat. Each piece emerged as a quiet collaboration between human intention and the wild choreography of fire.
By the end of the two weeks, each participant had created more than 50 functional and beautiful pieces — a testament to their focus, courage, and evolving confidence. Yet beyond the measurable outcome lay something even deeper: connection. To the earth beneath their hands, to ancestral traditions, and to one another.
This experience became more than a pottery course. It was a shared passage through material, movement and meaning — a reminder that true craft is as much about presence as it is about technique.
Photographs capturing these moments were lovingly taken by my husband, Krišjānis Piliņš.
