The Center for Advanced Mentored Studies

This three-year mentorship program is intended for ceramic artists interested in critical feedback and immersion in a creative community and who are at a point of transition in their lives, careers, or artistic practices. Emphasis is placed on seeking connections, metaphors, and symmetries between processes for forming clay and developing ways of generating meaning. The objects we make tell stories and propose worlds; a coil and a mold are both techniques for forming clay and also propositions about the meaningful interface of material, body, mind, economy, and culture. We focus on ways stories emerge from physical objects and how narratives give structure to physical form. We welcome participants from many different backgrounds and experiences, centering on work in clay but with the potential for different outcomes, including work in other materials, writing, sculpture, and design. 2024 is the second year of this three-year intensive program. For more information about our next session of The Center, which begins in 2026, please contact Betsy Alwin, Visiting Director of Ceramics and Expanded Media at balwin@andersonranch.org.  

The digital age has given documentary photographers and photojournalists new ways to tell stories with greater authorship and control. This workshop focuses on how to create a personal documentary project and get it seen. The ultimate goal is to find a subject that speaks to a personal passion, document it in a unique visual style, then disseminate the work. Participants engage new technologies to become more effective storytellers, which include social media, transmedia, virtual reality, and digital video. 2024 is the second year of this three-year intensive program. For more information about our next session of The Center, which begins in 2026, please contact Andrea Jenkins Wallace, Vice President of Artistic Affairs and Artistic Director of Photography and New Media, at awallace@andersonranch.org.

This three-year advanced mentorship program encourages each student to push their studio practice. Working at a rigorous pace, and engaging in critical dialog with the group and with the instructors in individual critique, artists refine and expand their investigations. Wide-ranging topics include concept and approach to contemporary art practice as well as technical and material explorations. Students are expected to work independently with the support of their class peers and instructors, raising the ambition of their own studio goals. Although primarily a painting workshop, participation by installation artists and other artists working across media is encouraged. The goal of the series is for students to gain community, develop insight into their work and, through discussion, challenge themselves to reflect on their artistic intentions. Critiques occur in person at the Ranch as well as virtually during fall and spring each year. 2024 is the third year of this three-year intensive program. For more information about our next session of The Center, which begins in 2025, please contact Liz Ferrill, Director of Painting, Drawing, and Printmaking at lferrill@andersonranch.org.

The digital age has given documentary photographers and photojournalists new ways to tell stories with greater authorship and control. This workshop focuses on how to create a personal documentary project and get it seen. The ultimate goal is to find a subject that speaks to a personal passion, document it in a unique visual style, then disseminate the work. Participants engage new technologies to become more effective storytellers, which include social media, transmedia, virtual reality, and digital video. 2024 is the second year of this three-year intensive program. For more information about our next session of The Center, which begins in 2026, please contact Andrea Jenkins Wallace, Vice President of Artistic Affairs and Artistic Director of Photography and New Media, at awallace@andersonranch.org.