Carys Martin Ceramics
Sat 1st Nov 9am - 4pm - Spirit of the Ancients: Carved Face Wall Plaques in Clay
Sat 1st Nov 9am - 4pm - Spirit of the Ancients: Carved Face Wall Plaques in Clay
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🗿✨ Spirit of the Ancients: Carved Face Wall Plaques in Clay ✨🗿
A One-Day Immersive Workshop with Diane from Mud of Moon
📅 Saturday 1st November | 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
📍 Unit 11, 7–9 Grant Street, Cleveland
Across the ages, humans have carved faces into stone, wood, and clay as symbols of spirit, power, and protection. From Celtic goddesses and Pagan guardians to forest spirits and ancestral watchers, these faces told stories, marked sacred places, and connected people to the unseen world.
In this immersive workshop, you’re invited to step into that lineage. Guided by ceramicist and creative Diane from Mud of Moon, you’ll spend the day hand-sculpting your own character wall plaque - a guardian, goddess, moon-watcher, or forest familiar of your imagining.
This is more than a class in clay. It’s a chance to create something infused with meaning - a piece that carries echoes of ancient traditions while reflecting your own creativity and spirit.
What You’ll Learn
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How to build a simple armature to support your clay plaque
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Techniques for sculpting expressive facial features
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Ways to add symbolic adornments - leaves, vines, antlers, moons, or other motifs
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Finishing touches to give your piece depth, texture, and personality
Once complete, your work will be slow-dried and kiln-fired. Your terracotta plaque will be ready for collection in a few weeks - weather-safe and ready to gather moss and magic in the turning year.
What’s Included
All tuition, clay, tools, materials, and kiln firings are provided. Just bring your imagination, your sense of story, and a willingness to get a little muddy.
✨ This is more than a craft workshop - it’s a ritual in clay, a face in the earth, and a companion for your sacred space.
🎟 All levels welcome - beginners encouraged.
Please Note:
This course requires a minimum of 4 attendees to run.
Due to the nature of the workshop, catch-up sessions cannot be offered. Please ensure you're available for the full day.
Meet you teacher Diane -
From an early age, Diane’s world was steeped in creativity. Encouraged by her parents to explore the natural world through art, Diane developed a lifelong connection to the organic beauty of nature—a theme that continues to inspire her ceramic work today. Her mother, a self-taught printing in the traditional English style, and her father, a painter and restorer who worked on the vintage circus collection of Barnum & Bailey, instilled in her a deep appreciation for craftsmanship and storytelling through art.
Professionally, Diane has spent over 21 years as a pastry chef, currently working at the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast, with part of her role to create show stopper displays modelled out of chocolate. Alongside her culinary career, she has spent the last eight years developing her skills in ceramics, with a particular passion for sculpture and hand-building techniques. Her daily work teaching pastry chefs sculptural techniques in chocolate has naturally deepened her understanding of form, texture, and creative teaching—skills she now brings into her clay practice.
Diane’s ceramic art is heavily influenced by her Celtic heritage and a deep respect for the natural world. Themes of ancient stone circles, the Green Man, and the cycle of life and nature are woven throughout her work, reflecting her belief that we come from the earth and will one day return to it.
As she continues to work as a pastry chef, Diane is also expanding her artistic practice, blending her discipline, creativity, and love for teaching into a growing career in ceramics. I am so excited to have her join The Studio team!
