The California Sculptors Symposium welcomes educators, artists and students to an energetic, creative environment overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Featuring lectures and demonstrations by premier sculptors; Instructors are experienced in stone carving, wood carving, clay, fibers, life drawing and teach general to advanced sculpting techniques. At the end of the symposium, CSS hosts an art exhibition of participants’ work. We hope you will join us for a fantastic week!

ABOUT CALIFORNIA SCULPTORS SYMPOSIUM

California Sculptors Symposium (CSS) is a 501c3 established in 2003 to promote education in sculpture. This annual, week-long, symposium is held at Camp Ocean Pines in beautiful Cambria, California. The camp is situated on a bluff overlooking the ocean, away from the distractions of daily life. This educational event is non-discriminatory and non-judgmental bringing together about 50-60 attendees and 3-6 professional instructors each year. Throughout the week, lectures and demonstrations on design, technical topics, and professional trade information are aimed at increasing the sculptors’ creativity and expertise. We invite students, artists of all levels, and the general public to gain a better understanding of how sculptures are created. It is a stimulating environment where participants come together to learn and share their enjoyment of working with stone and other media.

The first symposium in 2003 introduced a program that welcomed educators, artists and students to an energetic, creative environment overlooking the Pacific Ocean. CSS continues to feature lectures and demonstrations by premier sculptors. Instructors are experienced in stone carving, clay, wood carving, fibers, life drawing and teach general to advanced sculpting techniques.

California Sculptors Symposium is a welcoming space. Our programs and services are available to everyone, and we will not exclude anyone due to background or national origin, racial-ethnic considerations, sexuality or gender, personal opinions or affiliations, veteran status, or other personal characteristics. More importantly, we aspire to be an equitable and inclusive space for everyone. We are an anti-racist organization, committed to reducing or removing barriers to full inclusion.

2027 INSTRUCTORS:

Figurative Clay

Pamela Thomas connected with clay at 17 in her very first sculpture class at UC Berkeley. She earned a BA from UCB and an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. She concentrated her studies and early work on life-size ceramic figure sculpture inspired by and made in continuity with the Bay Area Figurative movement. In the intervening decades, Pam has continued her ceramics sculptural work and expanded her practice into the classical figurative tradition as well. Pam has taught Ceramics and Figure Sculpture at many Colleges including the Hartford Art School, University of ConnecticutStorrs, Seoul Women’s University in South Korea and Los Medanos, Merritt and Laney Colleges in California. Pam has participated in many exhibits across the United States and completed Residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation and the Corning Museum of Glass Studio. Pam is still captivated by the figure in clay and continues to create and exhibit her sculpture in the Bay area. In 2016, she founded Derby Creek Studios, an arts teaching space in Berkeley.

https://www.instagram.com/pamelathomasclaystudio

Workshop:

Materiality and the Figure

This workshop will begin with figurative sculpture fundamentals to help students of every level of experience get started working with the art model quickly and confidently. We will cover the basics of structural anatomy, proportion and gesture which will inform both our quick sketches and more involved studies. We will be creating fluid figurative shapes that are embodied and enlivened while embracing the material of clay and its capacity to record time and touch. Throughout the week, Pam will focus on the processes of building, making marks, modeling the clay with hands & tools and their resulting evidentiary textures. We will also spend time concentrating on the sculpture’s surface or “skin” to build an intimacy between the sculpture, the maker and the viewer.

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Tim Lehmann is a professional stone carver and sculptor living and working in Northern New Mexico.  After an informal apprenticeship in architectural stone carving, Tim travelled the U.S. working in stone shops of various sizes on projects ranging from the personal to the monumental. His experience grew to include proficiency in all manner of stones—such as granite and marble—and a wide variety of subjects: ornamental, memorial, figurative, and abstract.  He now has come to roost in the Taos area, where he does commission work and carving instruction in the summertime.  His personal work reflects a love and fascination for natural forms and patterns, specializing in carved ephemera, botanicals, and animals. 

https://www.instagram.com/fire.and.tim.stone

Workshop:

Pattern, Texture, and Flow

In addition to covering the fundamentals of stone carving—including layout, roughing out, and modeling—our workshop will take a deeper look at carving natural forms such as leaves, flowers, water, and hair.  We’ll discuss the commonalities of natural patterns and how we can translate textures and organic forms into stone.  While there will be an emphasis on the techniques and principles of hand carving, we’ll learn to step back and let spontaneity and ‘happy accidents’ have their say.  And while realism is an option, it is not a requirement, as we’ll explore many styles and approaches to stone sculpture.  Students are encouraged to bring a small model, object, sketches, or photos for reference or inspiration.

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Wood Carving

Miles Gracey (b. 1987) tells stories through furniture. As a classically trained woodworker, he combines narrative, fantasy, and craft into sculptural objects for the home. Stories about life are best told to the living (room). Inspired by his Grandmother’s life and her tendency to fabricate autobiographical details, Gracey’s furniture is situated somewhere between Rococo and high fantasy; blending together symbology from the natural world with a fantastical hyperbolic narrative structure— reuniting the mystic with the quotidian. Gracey received a BFA in Sculpture from Otis College of Art, a two year certificate of mastery from The Krenov School of Fine Furniture, and an MFA in 3D from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

https://www.instagram.com/plays.on.woods/

Workshop:

Wood Carving: Anthropomorphic Furniture

All objects contain stories, and, as sculptors, we are tasked with finding that narrative within the material. Wood carving is a reductive process, carving away everything that is not our story. Blurring the boundaries of functionality, participants will work toward making sculptural “shelves” from a single block of wood. We will learn to read wood grain to understand how to best approach cuts and proper layout, how to effectively use and sharpen gouges and other hand tools, sanding and finishing options, and the finer elements of wood carving to release that inner narrative.