SCULPTURE FROM MY BACK YARD | Figurative Vessel-Building and At-Home Glaze with Max Trumpower

$30.00

Join us Saturday, July 18th at 2:00 pm for a 2-hour workshop with artist Max Trumpower who shares knowledge and practical guidance on figurative vessel-building and at-home “glaze.” Max teaches the basics of collecting soil for surface treatment in ceramic sculpture work and demonstrates how to create textured surfaces with the collected soil samples. This COMPANION Assembly is a program of Coordinates of Belonging, the 2026 summer solstice.

Beginning with an artist talk, Max will show-and-tell accessible options for making wild slips or clay, pinch pots, ancient glazes, oxides, and stains. Participants will learn the basics of collecting soil for surface treatment on sculpture work. Max will demonstrate tips for making textured surfaces using collected soil samples, along with providing a tutorial on creating figures that also function as a vessel for holding liquids or objects. This workshop is designed for artists, sculptors, ceramicists, and anyone interested in alternative ceramic processes.

Space is limited to 30 guests.

Day-of ticketed admission to Coordinates of Belonging is included.

Coordinates of Belonging is a group exhibition presented off-site. The residential setting is stewarded by neighbors who have transformed the cottage, grounds, and remaining farmstead into an artists and writers residency. COMPANION & Max will be in touch with more location and attendance detail prior to the workshop.

Join us Saturday, July 18th at 2:00 pm for a 2-hour workshop with artist Max Trumpower who shares knowledge and practical guidance on figurative vessel-building and at-home “glaze.” Max teaches the basics of collecting soil for surface treatment in ceramic sculpture work and demonstrates how to create textured surfaces with the collected soil samples. This COMPANION Assembly is a program of Coordinates of Belonging, the 2026 summer solstice.

Beginning with an artist talk, Max will show-and-tell accessible options for making wild slips or clay, pinch pots, ancient glazes, oxides, and stains. Participants will learn the basics of collecting soil for surface treatment on sculpture work. Max will demonstrate tips for making textured surfaces using collected soil samples, along with providing a tutorial on creating figures that also function as a vessel for holding liquids or objects. This workshop is designed for artists, sculptors, ceramicists, and anyone interested in alternative ceramic processes.

Space is limited to 30 guests.

Day-of ticketed admission to Coordinates of Belonging is included.

Coordinates of Belonging is a group exhibition presented off-site. The residential setting is stewarded by neighbors who have transformed the cottage, grounds, and remaining farmstead into an artists and writers residency. COMPANION & Max will be in touch with more location and attendance detail prior to the workshop.

Max Trumpower is an artist from the foothills of North Carolina. Trumpower holds a BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in painting from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, and is currently an MFA candidate in Ceramics at Indiana University Bloomington. Short-term residencies include Red Lodge Clay Center, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Touchstone Center for Crafts, Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Trumpower is the recipient of many grants and awards, including the NCECA Graduate Fellowship.

I make objects and sculptures that tell everyday stories and warn of cautionary tales. The politics of folk parables and their relationship to queerness drive the narratives in my ceramic work. I am intrigued by the fluid boundaries between Mexican folklore, Southern traditions, and their complex relationship to craft that are representative of my childhood. In this body of work, figures shape-shift beyond the boundaries of gender, plant, and animal into an existence of their own. They provide context for another possible world—where trans liberation and ancestral knowledge collide. These altar-like objects possess world-building capabilities and create a transcendental space. Variations in glaze and surface design impart the capacity for transitions between the past, present, and future. As a medium, ceramics represent this transformation between transience and permanence, metaphysical and ground. The figures in Mile Marker (Pointing Girl) and Water Tower serve as monuments to both our ancestral past and our collective future.

View works by Max Trumpower featured in Coordinates of Belonging