Meet Eli Zemper | Teaching Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Eli Zemper and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Eli, we’d love for you to start things off by telling us something about your industry that we and others not in the industry might be unaware of?
After Covid, a lot of mobile workshops that provide recreation and creative events began to offer events at local businesses. People can learn a variety of things including how to make sourdough starter, glue beach glass onto window frames, make sushi, crochet, and other really interesting things. These workshops are “make and take” workshops; they are finished at the end of the workshop. Because all the art centers in my rural area closed during the pandemic, I also began to offer two-hour clay workshops in partnership with local businesses. Because of the nature of clay and ceramics, these workshops really are assisted art workshops and are not finished at the end of the workshop. What that means is that I roll out slabs of clay prior to the workshop, facilitate the workshop, and then take the creations that people have made and finish the artwork back at the studio. Clay is a finicky medium. There are lots of places where things can go wrong. After workshops, I check all the places where people have joined their pieces and sometimes go back through and reconnect things. I take the pieces off their forms and dry them slowly to try to prevent cracking and warping. I sand the bottoms of the pieces if they need it. To prevent pieces shattering in the kiln, I load everything after about a week of drying and run a preheat on the kiln overnight. Then I fire it for about 6 hours. It cools the next day. I unload it, then I wax the bottoms of the pieces, dip everything in a clear glaze and do a nine hour glaze fire. After everything has cooled, I package everything up and take it back to the place where the workshop was held so people can pick their pieces up. This process takes about two weeks. A lot of care and effort goes into planning and preparing for the workshops, but an equal amount of care and work goes into the post production phase. Wonderful facilitation and hospitality requires that these processes are seamless and invisible. It is my joy to provide this experience for people. I intentionally design these workshops so it feels like when we were kids and we showed up to preschool and all the materials were laid out for us and we were just encouraged to create. I think it’s important to provide opportunities for people to get back to that place- we don’t have many spaces where people do this for us as adults. The catch, business-wise, is that people don’t understand what goes on behind the scenes and therefore don’t understand/value these assisted art workshops any differently than two-hour make and take workshops. The clay workshops I offer are a collaborative, assisted process, but because the preparations before and after the workshop happen behind closed doors in the studio, it’s invisible. As I’m thinking about this, I wonder if there should be more opportunities for creators to see their creations are finished after they leave the workshop? Hmmm. . .

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
During the pandemic, all of the art centers in my rural area closed. Since that time, none of them have reopened. To address the lack of creative spaces in our rural communities, I started a mobile clay workshop business, Curiouser Clay, that delivers two-hour clay experiences. These two-hour workshops are really collaborative projects designed to help people connect with one another and create something with their hands. I’m really proud of the programming I offer. As an educator, I’ve spent a long time thinking learning about educational experience design (learnings that were furthered by my time with Odyssey Works). It’s important for me to create enticing and empathetic workshops that help people foster connections (with others, artistically, with themselves). If I’ve done my work right, the workshop should feel seamless. The preparations pre and the post production work should be invisible. And I think they mostly are. I want participants to feel cared for and supported during the time they spend with me. I want everyone to think that art is for THEM; everyone should have a seat at the table.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If someone was coming to Southeast Michigan and wanted an outdoor adventure and culinary tour (that’s what I want when I’m traveling!) I’d suggest the following:
Mountain Biking: DTE Energy Trails in Chelsea, Torn Shirt Trail in Brighton, Potto Trail in Pinckney
Kayak: Waterloo Recreation Area, and for a REALLY special view of Detroit, paddle the canals of Jefferson Chalmers.
Hiking: Crooked Lake loop at Pinckney Recreation Area

Eating (to replace all those calories!)
Sardine Room in Plymouth
Aventura in Ann Arbor
The Boro in Dixboro
Vicentes in Detroit

Best cocktail experience:
Bad Luck Bar in Detroit

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
When I made the transition from being a high school teacher for 26 years to facilitating mobile clay workshops, I was surrounded by a group of strong women that I thought/think about as my fairy godmothers. Like the godmothers in Sleeping Beauty, each of these women continue to model and support qualities I am developing in myself. There are three of these fairy godmothers that I’d like to give a shoutout to today:
Kristin Gapske is one of the smartest and most ethical, compassionate, and hard-working business people I know. She has given me her considerable insight and support in the early stages of my forming my business and is the kind of business person I want to grow into becoming. She continues to mentor me and help me make connections between people and ideas that can help me on my way.
Claire Sparklin is also another woman who has invested in helping me uncover and claim my voice. She is an amazing college instructor who teaches communication (and SO much more) and has been an unfailing supporter for me as I sorted out my transition to this phase of my teaching career.
Finally, the shoutout goes to Sarah Andrews, fitness coach and badass extraordinaire, for not only normalizing struggle, but celebrating it as a path to growth in all areas of our lives. She teaches it, she lives it, she models it. Being involved in The Distance, the community (that is also a gym) that she actively creates and nurtures has been important for my personal growth but also serves as a professional example of what compassionate, hardworking spaces can look like.

Website: https://curiouserclay.com

Instagram: @curiouserclay

Facebook: @curiouserclay

Image Credits
Eli Zemper