JULY 2025 potter WELLNESS coursE

This July we welcomed a group of potters — Jules from UK, Bettina from Germany/UK, Gee and Heidi from USA— for an immersive 4-week pottery journey.

They experienced the full spectrum of ceramic art: from shaping dinnerware using slab rolling, to starting to master the art of wheel-throwing, and exploring hand-building techniques in both porcelain and grogged stoneware.

The 4-week course is amazing as they got to load their own pieces in the kilns and learn in-depth also about glazing and glaze their own pieces with our guidance.

As the final touch we organized a BALTIC RAKU FIRING. The obvara firing process, which originated in Baltics around the 12th Century, involves scalding the finish on the pottery to seal the porous surface. Similar to the raku pottery process, a bisqued pot is heated, in this case to 1650°F (899°C) and removed from the heat. The pot is then dipped into a specific yeast mixture before being dunked in water to rapidly cool the piece. The effects are quite stunning and unique to each piece.

By the end of the course, each participant had created more than 60 beautiful and functional pieces — a testament to their dedication and newfound skills. Huge part of this experience was connecting with like-minded women, connecting with the untamed Latvian countryside and eating nourishing meals. There was a strong “WELNESS” theme throughout the course, we organized sound bath, SPA day, the ladies went to enjoy local restaurants in the weekends and joined my weekly QIGONG practice in the sunrise.

We concluded the course with displaying their pieces on the studio tables for a mini exhibition to take the time to celebrate the learning journey and where their portraits could also be taken.

This course was a real immersion in this creative sanctuary that we have created in the middle of nowhere that became somewhere!

Photographs capturing these memorable moments were kindly taken by my husband Krišjānis Piliņš.