GOING BIG WITH EMMA SMITH
Large-Scale Ceramics · Il Baciarino, Tuscany
I have always been drawn to scale. To the moment when a piece stops being something you can hold and starts being something you have to reckon with — something that takes up space, asks for attention, and changes the room it is in.
Most of us learn to make things that fit on a shelf. Going Big is about finding out what happens when you push past that threshold.
Emma Smith built the wood kiln that stands on the land at Il Baciarino in 2023. She returns in April 2027 to teach ten days of large-scale ceramics — not as a demonstration of what is possible, but as a guided exploration of what becomes possible when you commit to working bigger than you thought you could.
Emma is an award-winning Canadian ceramic artist whose practice is rooted in place, in the relationship between body and material, and in the particular kind of making that requires your full physical attention. She brings all of that to the teaching — an approach that is rigorous, patient, and genuinely curious about what each maker's hands want to do when given the room to do it.
What We Make
Large-scale ceramics require a different conversation with the clay than smaller work does. The forms take longer to build, demand more structural thinking, and require you to work in stages rather than all at once. This is not a limitation — it is a different kind of making, and one that teaches you things about the material that smaller work cannot.
Over ten days we work through the primary techniques for building at scale: coil and pinch, coil and throw, assembling composite forms, and building in segments that are joined as the clay stiffens. Each method has its own logic and its own demands. By the end of the retreat you will have a working understanding of all of them and a body of large-scale work that reflects what you discovered along the way.
The retreat culminates in a firing of Cantico — the wood kiln Emma built on this land. There is something particular about firing work in a kiln made by the person who taught you to make it. The connection between maker, teacher, kiln, and fire is part of what makes this retreat unlike any other.
About Emma
Emma Smith is a multi-award-winning Canadian ceramic artist living and working in Jerseyville, Ontario. Her wood-fired functional and sculptural ceramics are rooted in place, in the significance of the ordinary, and in the quiet utility of objects made to be used and lived with. She studied at Sheridan College and Haliburton School of the Arts and apprenticed with Gleasonbrook Pottery before opening her own studio and gallery. She teaches workshops across North America and exhibits internationally.
She built Cantico in 2023. She knows this kiln the way a maker knows a tool that was made by her own hands.
emmasmithceramics.com
A Typical Day
Studio mornings — building, problem-solving, learning to read the clay at a scale that requires patience. Afternoons that open out toward the land and the sea. Evenings at the table, where the conversation tends toward the kind that only happens when people have been making hard things together all day.
The firing day itself is its own rhythm. Early start, sustained attention, the particular camaraderie of tending something together through its full arc. Then the opening — which is always a surprise, no matter how well you think you know the kiln.
Who This Retreat Is For
Going Big is for ceramicists with an existing studio practice — you should be comfortable enough with clay to make work independently before you arrive. Previous large-scale or hand-building experience is useful but not required. What is required is the willingness to work slowly, to make mistakes at a scale that is harder to ignore, and to stay with a piece through the full arc of its making.
Six participants maximum.
2027 Dates and Price
April 2–11, 2027
€2,600 per person — all inclusive. This covers all tuition, all clay and materials, all meals and drinks, all day trips and cultural excursions, and pick-up and drop-off from Grosseto train station.
Accommodation
All accommodation is on the property at Il Baciarino, forty minutes from the sea in the hills of the Maremma. April in the Maremma is the most beautiful month of the year — the wildflowers are extraordinary, the light is long, and the sea is beginning to warm.
La Pesca sits at the top of the property with a large deck and an open main living area. Each of its four bedrooms has its own charms and are individually priced from €540 to €720 for the nine nights.
La Medea (€990), La Dolce Vita (€1260), La Quercia (€1260), and La Rondine (€1320) are smaller cottages suited to those who want more privacy.
Partners, plus-ones, and families are welcome if you take a cottage to yourself. Additional costs for food and excursions: €1,200.
To Book
Write to Chandra directly. She will hold a place for you and you can sort the details from there.
The kiln does not care how long you have been making. It only cares that you show up ready to pay attention. If that sounds like you, write soon.