2026 ÃÛÌÒÖ±²¥ Workshop Registration Will Open in February 2026 Step into the breathtaking natural landscape of the ÃÛÌÒÖ±²¥ campus and embark on a transformative creative journey within a welcoming community of passionate artists. Our Adult ÃÛÌÒÖ±²¥ Program offerings allow you to immerse yourself in your craft, expand your knowledge, gain inspiration, and establish meaningful connections in an idyllic setting.
Instructor: Amelia Toelke
This workshop will focus on the creation of a sterling silver charm bracelet adorned with charms designed by participants. Learn precision soldering techniques that focus on chain making, sweat soldering, small-scale construction and fabrication with sheet and wire.
Instructor: Michelle Solorzano
Spend a week bringing a figure to life! Using slabs, templates, and reference images, you’ll build a hollow form in parts, assemble and refine it, and finish with patterned surface decoration to tell a story.
Instructor: Forrest Lesch Middelton
Uncover your artistic voice through tiles and wheel-thrown forms. With Forrest’s guidance, explore image transfer, silk screens, embossments, and reduction cooling to create richly decorative, functional wares with fresh surface approaches.
Instructor: Milo Berezin
Create lively characters, patterns, and narratives on hand-built pottery! This workshop will introduce various soft slab building techniques including slab coils and press molds. Students will then explore illustrative decorating techniques on greenware using slip, underglaze, and customizable carving tools.
Instructors: Diane Hidy & Antoinette Perry
This workshop is designed for advanced level pianists to improve their performance skills and polish their repertoire. Daily Master Classes and performances take place in the beautiful William M. Lowman Concert Hall.
Instructor: Rick Paulus
Enjoy an immersive calligraphy journey as you explore a broad range of tools, materials, and techniques, from historic to contemporary, with expert guidance throughout.
Instructor: Eric L. Stearns
This workshop is designed for artists familiar with throwing who want to expand their skills, develop a custom color palette using Mason stains, and experience the challenges of Raku firing.
Instructor: Kelsey Bowen
Come and learn how to create lively figurative sculptures full of emotion and movement!
Instructor: Daniel Garver
Slipcasting from start to finish! A broad introduction to moldmaking to expand your practice. We will cover a wide range of material including model making, simple press molds to complicated multipart casting molds, mixing casting slip, plaster, glazes, and more.
Instructor: John Brosio
A class in full color, alla prima painting with oils, from observation.
Instructor: Cat Orlando
Transform old books into unique works of art by turning their pages into a canvas for self-expression. Explore mixed media techniques including collage, painting, cutting, folding, stamping, layering, and journaling.
Instructor: Malia Peoples
Discover the intersection of ceramics and jewelry-making! Shape, layer, and decorate colored porcelain clay into earrings, pendants, and more. Practice assembly techniques and take home unique porcelain jewelry that is sure to surprise and delight.
Instructors: Tom Laichas & Lynne Thompson
In this week-long workshop, Tom Laichas will teach the first half and Lynne Thompson will teach the second half! Laichas’s ‘Poetry and the Prince‘ will explore how poetry responds to corruption and power by examining diverse political forms from satire to lament, drawing on global poetic traditions. Thompson’s ‘Wordplay and Other Roads to Verse-City‘ will then focus on craft and play, using a variety of forms including prose poems, glosas, centos, and forms of her own creation to discover new approaches to writing.
Instructor: Brendan Constantine
Howard Nemerov described poetry as ‘a means of seeing invisible things and saying unspeakable things about them.’ In this workshop participants will re-examine metaphor as a source of strength, liberation, and a gateway to compassion. No experience necessary. Sufferers of ‘Writer’s Block,’ strongly encouraged!
Instructor: Judith Schonebaum
This is an introduction to the wide range of possibilities of using chalk pastel! Through a variety of exercises exploring drawing techniques, such as line, style, color, layering, composition and observation, participants will gain the tools to pursue individual expression.
Instructor: David Johnson
Discover the art of traditional seat weaving as you learn to hand cane a patterned frame and rush weave a small footstool. The class also includes tips on selecting and shopping for used chairs to restore.
Instructor: Nīa MacKnight (Anishinaabe/Lakhóta/Scottish)
This class will explore visual narrative techniques through alternative, experimental photography processes while drawing inspiration from the local ecologies of Idyllwild.
