Figure Sculpture
Adult Summer Class | Registration opens Monday, May 4, 2026 8:00 AM EDT
This course intends to provide a basic understanding of sculpting a human figure in clay. Students will learn about proportions, anatomy, and modeling techniques through observing a live model. This is an opportunity to build a full figure, portrait, or fragment. We will work without an armature, allowing for works made to be hollowed out and then fired. This will be explained in more depth during the first class. Everybody is welcome and beginners are encouraged!
What you will learn:
- Techniques of observation and modeling in clay
- Methods and materials for additive and reductive sculpting with clay
- Anatomy, structure, and proportions
- Options for finalizing and formalizing figurative sculptures
Firing Schedule: Sculpture students are welcome to fire finished work in our Ceramics Studio. Finished work may not be on an armature and must be bone dry before firing. Therefore, sculpture students are encouraged to bring finished work home at the end of the term and bring it back to campus the following term for firing. Additional questions about firing sculpture works can be directed to Scott Cooper, Senior Studio Technician at scooper@fleisher.org.
Miranda Blas
Miranda Blas is a multi-media Latina artist working primarily in atmospheric-fired ceramics. Her colorful and feminist work disrupts the binary of craft and fine art. Most of Miranda’s work is both sculptural and functional, designed to be used in the home and appreciated as fine art. Inspired by nature, art history, and the earthy experience of being a woman, Miranda’s unique style is sculptural and painterly. Each one-of-a-kind piece is hand sculpted or thrown on the wheel and altered. Then the artist painstakingly glazes her work by brushing on hand-mixed glazes.
Educated as a Plein Air oil painter in the south of France, Miranda’s ceramic work has a vibrant, impressionist quality. After being glazed, the ceramic works are fired in an atmospheric method like raku, pit fire, or wood fire. During the firing, the flames, smoke, and combustibles contribute to a totally unique work of art. Miranda Blas received her undergraduate degree from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and her MFA from the Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing in Aix-en-Provence, France. She now lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.