"I'm sitting on the ground with seven others, huddled around a mass of lumpy, grey matter that quickly turns to powder under the pounding of hammers. Beside us are a small dipping pool, some mulberry trees and a whitewashed house crawling with purple bougainvillaea, from which two dogs drift in and out to inspect our work. This is pretty therapeutic, isn't it? someone says above the clattering of tools, as flower-dappled light dances on a canopy that's shielding us from the hot Andalucian sun."
"We're on a four-day wild clay ceramics retreat at Las Mecias, a regenerative farm in Spain's Alpujarras, an idyllic valley just over an hour and a half south-east of Granada in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The course is a collaboration between Las Mecias's Dutch owners, Laura and Nina, and Spaniards Milena and Julia from Tierra de Arcillas, a local ceramics studio. They connected through Instagram and things evolved from there."
"The aim is to teach guests how to find, forage, process and fire ceramics from locally sourced wild clay in a more sustainable approach to pottery. They run a handful of workshops in spring and autumn when temperatures are more bearable. I found Las Mecias while looking for pottery retreats in Spain, already hooked after one wheel-throwing workshop months earlier."
Participants gather outdoors at Las Mecias to process and hand-build ceramics from locally sourced wild clay using hammers, dipping pools and simple tools. The retreat combines practical clay-foraging skills with firing techniques and sustainable pottery practices led by a collaborative team from Las Mecias and Tierra de Arcillas. Workshops run mainly in spring and autumn to avoid extreme heat. The setting includes mulberry trees, a whitewashed house with bougainvillaea and off-grid farm features in the Alpujarras near Granada. A previous wheel-throwing workshop provided a participant with notable emotional relief from depression and anxiety.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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