Ceramics Program at OCC

Orchard Ridge, Auburn Hills, & Royal Oak Campuses

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Purpose of the Program
To create a learning environment that encourages personal openness, creativity and technical support. The OCC ceramics program provides opportunities for study at three uniquely different clay studious with experienced instructors committed to expanding the human potential in each student. Oriented toward persons who want to enrich their lives and increase their ceramic skills, the program can be pursued to obtain professional pottery making skills, to earn Art or Humanities credit for transfer to a University or Art school, to earn an Associates Degree in Ceramic Technology or to simply develop one's aesthetic identity and nurture one's spiritual growth.

Ceramics Course Offerings
Art 154 Ceramics
Art 254 Advanced Ceramics
Cer 131 General Pottery
Cer 232 Advanced General Pottery
Cer 121 Wheel Throwing I
Cer 122.1 Wheel Throwing II
Cer 123 Wheel Throwing III
Cer 124 Wheel Throwing IV
Cer 241 Glaze Formulation I
Cer 242 Glaze Formulation II
Cer 221.1 Ceramic Field Study

Faculty
Henry Tanaka Auburn Hills Campus
Robert Piepenburg Orchard Ridge Campus
Charles Blosser Royal Oak Campus

Locations
Auburn Hill Campus, 2900 Featherstone Road, Auburn Hills, MI 48326-284 (248) 232-4100
Orchard Ridge Campus, 27055 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48334-4579 (248) 522-3400
Royal Oak Campus, 739 S. Washington, Royal Oak, MI 48067-3898 (248) 246-2400

Semester Class Schedules & Registration
Phone: 248-522-3400 to have a course schedule mailed to your home.

Orchard Ridge Campus Studio

Click here to see our Studio! The campus clay studio is located on the first floor of L building. The northern exposure of the two main working studios are made up of wall-to-wall windows overlooking a natural, smi-wooded, campus landscape. Both rooms contain exterior access doors to outdoor kilns. The clay making and storage room is located adjacent to an outdoor loading dock and houses a large, dust-vented, mechanical clay mixer, a 4" Vemco, vacuum equipped, pug mill, and a vacuum equipped Peter Pugger for fine tuning 25 pounds of personal clay. Each registered student is provided a 10" x 36" shelf in the ware storage room for their personal use. The relatively small but completely stocked glaze chemical room contains stainless steel table-top working surfaces located above 30 large chemical storage tip-bins. In addition to the usual balance beam scales, two electric digital scales are available for student use and glaze calculations. The 20 to 25 pre-made studio glazes are stored in five gallon containers located in the glazing room, along with four down-vented electric bisque kilns. The exterior door of this room directly faces the outdoor shuttle kiln. This 35 cubic foot Bailey shuttle kiln was custom made for the Orchard ridge studio in New York and shipped to the college on a flat-bed truck in 1995. This gas kiln is reduction-fired to cone ten and is sheltered on three sides by covered brick/glass block walls. Located adjacent to the Bailey kiln are the top-loading raku kilns and the all-important 15' x 15' sand reduction pit.


Instructor
About Robert Piepenburg

Robert Piepenburg is a well-known artist and author. He has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and several Michigan Council for the Arts Creative Artist Grants. His works are in many private and public collections including the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. As a teacher, who passionately honors the primal dimensions of human possibilities, he was recently selected by his college and colleagues as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Robert's ceramics books, Raku Pottery and The Spirit of Clay, have been described as technical partners and spiritual friends to those seeking to expand and clarify their knowledge of themselves through clay. His latest book, Treasures of the Creative Spirit, explores the human spirit as the ultimate source of creative activity and provides a gentler understanding of what it is to be authentically creative.

Robert Piepenburgs Work

Student Gallery

Questions
Sandy Happle, the studio's friendly and knowledgable assistant, Doree Shaw, the departmental secratary and instructor Robert Piepenburg are always delighted to answer questions relating to the program. You may reach them at the following phone numbers: Clay studio: 248-522-3592, Department office: 248-522-3590, Instructor's office: 248-522-3591.

OTHER CERAMIC WEB SITES
ClayArt-Discussion By Subject: http://www.potters.org/categories.htm
Ceramics Web (Great Sources of Info): http://art.sdsu.edu/ceramicsweb/
Yahoo Ceramics List: http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Ceramics
Contact Ceramics (Canadian Magazine): http://www.cadvision.com/ceramics
Carolina Clay Glaze Recipes: http://www.cclay.com/glazes.htm
Raku Glaze Reccipes: http://netnow.micron.net/=7Egafergus/rakuglaz.htm
National Council on Education fo the Ceramic Arts: http://www2.tamucc.edu/nceca
London Potters Guild: http://www.coraltech.com/londonpotters
Pottery Tips: http://www.camasnet.com/=7Easondahl/potterytips.html

See College Catalog for complete degree requirements
For registration information Go to OCC Home Page