“Experimental” and “performative” are just a few ways to describe our nationally recognized Ceramics program. You’ll dig into making everything from figurative sculptures and functional pottery to experiential installations and radical work.
📍1111 8th St., lower level
Ceramics Studios
Media Gallery
360° view of Ceramics Studio, Kiln Room, and Glaze Room | California College of the Arts
About BFA Ceramics
Think with your hands
🧱 About BFA Ceramics
Our program begins with the basics—like handbuilding, slab construction and glazing—and ends at the extremes of scale, material, and context. You’ll be pushed as a clay artist and maker, and our studio culture is supportive and inspirational. The college’s ties to the Arts and Crafts movement and the Bay Area’s thriving contemporary art scene are big perks of the program, too.
The possibilities of clay
You’ll get lifelong mentorship from our faculty. Their award-winning work crosses different disciplines and makes an impact—whether it’s creating ceramic nests for seabirds in peril or exploring social issues through performance art. Students get expansive with their practices, adding motors to make mechanical sculptures or painting comics onto ceramic vessels.
Community traditions
The annual Blindfolded Throwing Contest puts student and faculty wheel skills to the test! Contestants vie for accolades like “Most Gravity Defying”and “Most Likely to Never Touch Clay Again.” You’ll also connect with the larger clay community through visiting artists who come to campus for critiques and public lectures.
🛠️ Think with your hands
Our ceramics benchroom is the home base for all things clay with collaborative working tables, slab rollers, drape molds, extruders, and shelves for in-progress work. And, with all campus making spaces and tools available, you can think beyond the medium, using the Potterbot to produce digitally modeled objects or slip cast 3D-printed forms, like undergraduate student Kiran Joseph Schwaebe.
Plaster and Mold-Making Studio
Create with aluminum, clay, ceramic, and metal. In the Plaster and Mold-making Studio, students have access to reusable retaining wall pieces (cottle boards) for constructing mold boxes, mixing containers, stir sticks, mold releases, and limited consumable materials such as plaster. A small vac-u-forming machine is available for molding plastic and food-safe materials.
Ceramics Benchroom
This space is outfitted with large canvas working tables for classroom instruction in hand building, wheel throwing, and slip casting. There is ample storage space for student work and materials, and five individual studios for student use. Four Potterbot clay printers complete the 3D clay printing area. Next door, you’ll find the kiln and glaze rooms where you can finish off your works of art.
