Material Alchemy: Workshops That Transform at Anderson Ranch

March 10, 2026

Posted In: Workshops

Tags: 2026 Summer Workshop Guide

Material Alchemy: Workshops That Transform at Anderson Ranch

What does it mean to truly transform something? Not just change its shape, but reimagine its very nature – turning wax into bronze, fabric into painting, or a single photographic image into a three-dimensional ceramic narrative? At Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado, that kind of creative metamorphosis happens every summer. And for 2026, the workshops centered on material alchemy are some of the most compelling the Ranch has offered in years.

This guide is for artists and art lovers who are drawn to process, who find as much meaning in how something is made as in the final result. If experimentation, material exploration, and pushing the limits of your practice excite you, these workshops were built with you in mind. Whether you work in clay, metal, wood, or paint, there’s something here to challenge and inspire.

Included in this guide:

• Water-Based Painting: An Exploration of Technique & Form
• Image + Clay: Exploring Mixed Media Ceramics
• Handcarved: Making a Two-Board Chair
• Find Your Fire: An Introduction to Saggar Firing
• Investigations in Lithography: Honing the Essentials
• Introduction to Hot Metal Casting

What Is Material Alchemy?

The term “alchemy” has always carried a sense of transformation beyond the ordinary—turning one thing into something fundamentally different. Applied to art-making, material alchemy describes the process of working with raw materials in experimental, often unexpected ways to create something entirely new.

It’s the guiding theme behind a curated selection of Anderson Ranch workshops that emphasize process, experimentation, and craftsmanship. These aren’t courses where you follow a step-by-step formula. They’re immersive experiences that ask you to stay curious, stay flexible, and trust the process, even when the results surprise you.

Painting: Harnessing Spontaneity

Water-Based Painting: An Exploration of Technique & Form
July 20 – 24 

Faculty: Azikiwe Mohammad

Spontaneity sounds like something that just happens. Azikiwe Mohammad would argue otherwise. This workshop is built on the idea that spontaneity can be cultivated—that working quickly, experimenting boldly, and embracing the unpredictable isn’t reckless, it’s a skill.

Through demonstrations, lectures, and guided in-class painting time, participants move from concept to execution using water-based media. The focus is on building a vocabulary of techniques that help you create vibrant, narrative-driven work with confidence. You’ll leave with a richer toolbox and a more dynamic approach to your painting practice.

Learn more about Water-Based Painting: An Exploration of Technique & Form

Azikiwe Mohammed, Leroy’s Coffee Break #3

Photography & Ceramics: Where 2D Meets 3D

Image + Clay: Exploring Mixed Media Ceramics
July 20 – 31

Faculty: Yana Payusova

This two-week intensive sits at a fascinating crossroads: photography, digital processes, and ceramics, all in conversation with one another. Instructor Yana Payusova brings a rare depth of training to this workshop—classically trained in painting in Russia, then photography, then graduate-level photographic processes, and now primarily working in ceramics where she marries all three disciplines.

For photographers, this is an opportunity to move images into three-dimensional form while deepening narrative development. For ceramic artists, it opens up new ways of thinking about decoration and surface storytelling. Participants work with personal, found, or generated images to design photographic decals for transfer onto handbuilt ceramic forms. By the end of the two weeks, you’ll have both the technical skills and the conceptual strategies to integrate 2D and 3D elements in your work.

This workshop is a standout example of the photography and new media workshops that Anderson Ranch has become known for—courses that go well beyond technique to explore what images can do.

Learn more about Image + Clay: Exploring Mixed Media Ceramics

Yana Payusova

Woodworking: Personal Touch, Timeless Craft

Handcarved: Making a Two-Board Chair
August 24 – 28 

Faculty: Charles Thompson

Charles Thompson takes something deceptively simple—two boards—and shows you how to turn them into a beautifully crafted, fully functional chair. It’s a workshop about accessible craftsmanship and personal expression working together.

Students learn foundational joinery techniques including mortise and tenon joints, dovetails, and tapered sliding dovetails, while also developing their own pattern-carving vocabulary. The chair itself follows an Alpine vernacular style, but the flourishes are entirely yours. You’re not just learning to build; you’re learning to make something unmistakably your own.

Learn more about Handcarved: Making a Two-Board Chair

Charles Thompson, Brettstuhls, Cherry and Elm, 2023.

Ceramics: The Chemistry of Atmosphere

Find Your Fire: An Introduction to Saggar Firing
August 24 – September 4

Faculty: Suzanne Hill

Saggar firing has deep historical roots. Saggar boxes were originally used to shield delicate porcelain from ash in wood firings. Today, the process has evolved into something far more experimental: a way to create miniature atmospheric environments inside a gas kiln, each producing distinct and often stunning surface effects on clay.

Instructor Suzanne Hill guides students through every stage—making the saggar boxes, preparing combustible materials, and firing the finished pieces. Because each saggar creates its own sealed environment, no two outcomes are exactly alike. That element of discovery is exactly what makes this workshop so compelling for artists who love process and are excited by the unexpected. You’ll leave with a new firing vocabulary and the confidence to keep experimenting long after the workshop ends.

Learn more about Find Your Fire: An Introduction to Saggar Firing

Suzanne Hill, Cloud of Change

Printmaking: Chemistry, Craft, and Community

Investigations in Lithography: Honing the Essentials
September 7 – 18

Faculty: Valpuri Remling

Lithography is a process that once revolutionized printmaking—and it remains one of the most technically fascinating and communally practiced disciplines in the print world. Valpuri Remling, a master printer and one of the top lithographers working today, leads this two-week deep dive.

The process itself is rooted in a simple chemical principle: oil and water don’t mix. A grease-based mark on an acidic surface becomes a resist, and from there, an image. It sounds straightforward. In practice, it’s endlessly nuanced.

Because lithography requires specialized equipment that most artists can’t access in a home studio, the chance to work at Anderson Ranch’s Patton Print Shop—with world-class tools and a world-class instructor—is genuinely rare. This is a masterclass in the truest sense: a cohort of serious printmakers working at a high level, building community through a shared discipline.

Learn more about Investigations in Lithography: Honing the Essentials

Lucy Fradkin, Dear Esther. Printed by Valpuri Remling at Tamarind Institute. Copyright Lucy Fradkin 2023. Image courtesy of Tamarind Institute.

Sculpture: Transforming Metal, Transforming Practice

Introduction to Hot Metal Casting
September 7 – 18

Faculty: Betsy Alwin and William Lanzillo

There’s something profound about watching a familiar object become liquid, then solidify again in an entirely new form. That’s the core experience of this two-week metal casting intensive—and for many participants, it’s genuinely transformative.

Students begin by creating wax forms, then move through the full casting process: ceramic shell mold construction, burnout, hot metal pouring, and finishing. The workshop also covers green sand casting for quicker results. By the end, you’ll have a working knowledge of cast metal sculpture and a new relationship with materials, permanence, and process.

As instructors Betsy Alwin and William Lanzillo often note, what makes this workshop special is what students discover about longevity—about making something in bronze or aluminum that has an entirely different relationship with time than most studio work.

Learn more about Introduction to Hot Metal Casting

A Place Built for Transformation

Since Paul Soldner first envisioned Anderson Ranch as a “Center of the Hand” in 1966, the institution has been a place where making and seeing—craft and concept—work together. These material alchemy workshops embody that founding spirit. They ask participants to slow down, engage deeply with their materials, and trust that the process itself will teach them something.

Spaces in these workshops fill quickly. If any of these experiences resonate with your practice, explore the full 2026 workshop catalog and secure your place in the studio.

Explore all summer workshops.

Not sure where to begin? Our friendly artistic staff are here to help guide your creative path. Email us at [email protected], and we’ll match you with the perfect workshop.