Rita Panton shares her whimsical passion for clay while exposing students to foundational techniques of ceramics. She seeks to create a playful environment of exploration, welcoming students to find their own story in clay.
As an educator her focus involves encouraging students to find meaning and connection in their making process. Students learn to use creativity both as a means of self-expression and a tool for understanding and well-being.
More About the Artist
Hand building can be a very transformative process, it is creation at its most ancient and fundamental. The medium is limitless and forgiving and offers a rich sensory/tactile experience that students of any age and ability can find engaging and rewarding. Clay offers infinite possibilities. Rita encourages students to experiment freely, make choices, and see where those choices take them.
Formerly a pastry chef, Rita began her career as a creative educator teaching folks culinary skills. She has taught ceramics at museums, festivals, schools, and community events. She earned her BFA from the University of Minnesota and was awarded a Jerome Project Grant from Northern Clay Center. She has exhibited at Mia, Duluth Art Institute, Form + Content Gallery, NCECCA, and Northern Clay. Inspired by her drawings, Panton’s ceramic sculptures playfully explore balance and hyperbole. Developing a method that merges flat and three-dimensional, she captures figures in her unique illustrative style to add to an ongoing narrative.
Program Offerings
Workshops
Clay Dream
This one session experience offers the opportunity to hand build with clay from ideas inside your head. Participants will spend time experimenting freely by creating (often with a prompt like Let’s build a city, or a forest full of creatures) clay pieces to add to a collective creation. Techniques on how to form and join together clay will be offered. For this workshop, clay will be recycled after the session rather than fired in the kiln.
Residencies
Claytime includes demonstration of ceramic hand building techniques including coils, slabs, pinching, joining, texture. After learning some basics, participants are encouraged to play with clay and customize their own project by experimenting. Slips, glazes and a variety of tools will be available and work will be fired.
Pinch Pot Creatures
The journey starts with a pinch pot in this residency, with no way of knowing what will become. Participants learn to form animals, creatures and more. Concepts of form, color, and texture will be explored and participants will build a habitat together. Slips, glazes and a variety of tools will be available and work will be fired.
Holding Things
Learn to make a vessel/object to give to someone you care about. This residency focuses on the ceramic container and the wild variations on ways to hold. Slips, glazes and a variety of tools will be available and work will be fired.
Clay Deco
The focus of Clay Deco is decoration of clay tiles or objects. Drawing, Scraffitto, and carving techniques will be explored as well as visual narrative. This residency is designed for grades 6-12, as well as adults. Slips, glazes and a variety of tools will be available and work will be fired.
