Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts

At the time I got to visit Watershed, they were in the process of constructing a new building next to the resident housing. It sounds like it’s going to be a great space with laundry, dining space, kitchen, lounge area and more! The housing is modest; like summer camp dorm rooms with a small common space. The bedrooms are double occupied, but you can pay extra from a single room. Next to the housing area is a neighbor farm with a bunch of sheep. A short walk away from that is the ceramic studio.

The studio building is new and full of natural light. In the main studio room are no walls dividing the artists’ workspaces and there are large windows lining the walls basking the whole space with natural light. In the summer time, there are 15-18 resident artists that stay for 2 weeks at a time. The cohort eats three free meals a day and all work in the shared open studio together. Residents almost always light an evening bonfire at the end of the day to relax and unwind together at the end of the day. In the studio, there’s also 6-8 seasonal staff that use the studio as well!

I was told there’s a lot of glacial marine clay in the area that residents sometimes harvest and use. The nature trails are abundant around the studio and there is a variety of outside recreation near by Watershed. This place would be great for a variety of artists, whether they’re looking for a fresh, new environment to draw inspiration or artists between studios looking for a place to work or an artist looking to spend a couple weeks creating new friendships with ceramics people from all over!

They also have a cool, retired, old beehive kiln in front of the studio. It’s a beautiful part of Watershed’s history!