Weekend in Asheville: Handmade Bread, Hand-built Pots

JUNE 1ST + JUNE 2ND | asheville, north carolina

For the crafts people, the dreamers, the ones that want to work with their hands. We’re offering a weekend workshop in Asheville, North Carolina, that explores both sourdough baking and hand-built pottery, drawing upon the varied skill sets of Betsy Gonzalez, Melissa Weiss, and Brennan Johnson.

Please ensure to thoroughly read the description, payment information, scholarship opportunities, and the terms and conditions before signing up. Our workshops are non-refundable.

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

Our aim is to weave together the hand-building techniques and aesthetics of both bread and pottery, allowing students to work with their full set of senses while we make doughs and work with clay together. Students will take home sourdough starter, a proofing basket, a 1lb bag of freshly-milled flour, and a loaf of bread, while the hand-built pottery will be shipped after the class.

location + class schedule

Day 1: 9:30 am - 2:30 pm | wnc foodworks kitchen

We’ll spend Saturday at the WNC FoodWorks Kitchen in West Asheville as Betsy and Brennan teach a class on sourdough bread and pizza. We’ll cover every step of the sourdough process, and offer detailed explanations on sourdough fermentation and whole grains. Along the way, we will make a sourdough pizza dough and prepare toppings for Sunday’s wood-fired pizza party.

Day 2: 9:30 am - 3:30 pm | Southside Studios

On Sunday we’ll convene at Melissa’s studio in South Asheville to make some pots together. We will use hand building techniques covering coil, pinch and carve to make a variety of cups; goblets, teacups, mugs. Melissa will glaze, fire, and ship to students after class. We will be using a cone 6 clay body and firing to cone 6 oxidation.

Notes on payment

A $50 deposit is required to secure your spot. After signing up, expect to receive invoices within a week for the remaining $525 amount. Invoices must be paid in full within 48 hours of receiving them, otherwise your spot will be offered to someone else. Your spot is not confirmed until your balance has been paid in full.

Scholarships

We’ve reserved (2) spots for scholarship opportunities – costs outside of materials have been waived. If you are interested, DO NOT reserve a spot through the shop – please follow these instructions: Send the instructors an email with the subject line “SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION” with a short description of why you’d like to join this workshops. Ensure to copy ALL three instructors in your application: brennan@walnutschoolhouse.com, info@osonobread.com, and melissa@melissaweisspottery.com. After receiving applications, we will deliberate before notifying applicants by Monday, April 8th if they have been selected.

Our class discussions

• Hand building pottery: techniques covering coil, pinch and carve to make a variety of cups; goblets, teacups, mugs; plus discussions on glazing and firing

• Starters: overview of creating and maintaining sourdough starters

• Fermentation: demystifying the various stages of fermentation and understanding how it can play a role in flavoring and enhancing bread

• Regional, stone ground and freshly-milled flours: learning the role of various types of flour in bread-making; how to maximize flour’s flavor; how to source regional grains, and baking with freshly-milled flours

• Baking techniques: exploring the fundamental basics of proper mixing, shaping and baking by utilizing your senses

• Equipment: creating your bread baking toolkit to replicate the provided recipes at home

• History and modernization: discover what sourdough baking looked in older times and how it has been modernized and re-popularized today.

Reserve your spot through Gentle Rhythms’ website with a $50 deposit. Your spot is not confirmed until you’ve paid the remaining balance of $625 within 48 hours of receiving invoices. Scholarship applicants: do not submit the deposit and instead refer to the instructions above to apply.

Before signing up for our class, it’s important that you familiarize yourself with our policy page for our workshop terms and conditions. Our workshop tickets are nonrefundable, however, tickets are transferrable.

Melissa Weiss

Melissa Weiss is a full time studio potter working and living in Asheville, NC. She has been working with clay since 2005. She makes all her pots from a custom stoneware she makes herself utilizing clay she digs from her property in the Arkansas Ozarks. All of her pieces are one of a kind and fired to cone 10 in a gas kiln and reduction cooled with wood. Originally from NYC she finds inspiration and comfort from her memories of Sunday Sicilian dinners which her grandmother cooked from scratch for dozens of relatives every sunday without fail. Melissa earned a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in NYC in 2000. Her education in ceramics was pieced together starting with a con ed class at the local technical school. She took classes at a communal clay studio and attended various craft schools as an assistant, a work study and a teacher. Melissa teaches workshops and exhibits her work throughout the country.

Brennan Johnson

Brennan’s fascination with food culture and history was catalyzed by a trip to Western Europe in 2009 to study communal brick ovens. He began baking bread soon after, baking out of his father’s own brick oven and selling at local farmers markets during his high school summers. He has a degree from Whitman College in Environmental Humanities — which, for him, meant exploring our culture’s relationship to food — an herbalism certificate from Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine, and has worked in restaurants and bakeries in San Francisco, Portland, Asheville, Minneapolis, and Europe. Gentle Rhythms is, for him, a way to piece together those disparate experiences, combining his curiosity in food studies with his love of hands-on cooking. These days, he is usually found on the road, learning about foodways wherever he is.

Betsy Gonzalez

After cultivating a baking career both regionally and abroad, Betsy Gonzalez established Osono Bread in Atlanta, Georgia in late 2018. Their old-world approach to baking emphasizes an investment in regional millers, local farmers, and the nourishment of the community through the tangible form of bread. Over the years, Osono Bread has grown to provide naturally leavened bread and pastry at weekly farmers markets throughout Atlanta.

Beyond a dedication to wholesome baking, Betsy strives to use their platform to share the beauty of creating community through food and the power of the people's labor behind it.