SPARK with Rhiannon Rice

Jewellery · Ceramics · Glass · Enamelling · Silversmithing · Wax Casting
AT Il Baciarino, Tuscany

January 22 - 31, 2027

January is not the obvious time to come to Tuscany. The tourists are gone. The olive harvest is finished. The hills are quiet in a way they are not at any other time of year.

This is precisely why we chose it.

Spark is a retreat about beginning; about the particular courage it takes to try something you have never tried before, in a season that asks you to slow down and pay attention. We work across five media: ceramics, glass, enamelling, silversmithing, and wax casting. We make jewellery. We make talismans. We make objects that are worn rather than displayed — small, personal, carried on the body.

Some pieces will be made entirely in one medium. Others will combine two or three — a ceramic form set in silver, a cast wax shape finished in enamel. The connections between the media are part of what the retreat is teaching.

The Teaching

Spark is taught by two people whose practices are distinct and complementary.

I teach ceramics and glass - working with form, surface, and the particular qualities of fired material. My daughter Rhiannon (who is a jeweller of rare instinct) teaches enamelling, silversmithing, and wax casting - working with metal, with heat, with the precision that jewellery demands and the freedom that good jewellery allows.

Between us we cover the full range of what the retreat offers. The teaching is hands-on and responsive.  We move through the studio alongside you rather than demonstrating from a distance.

The Making

The ten days move fluidly between skill-building and making. In the first days we spend dedicated time in each medium - enough to understand its logic, to feel how it behaves, to make your first mistakes in a context where mistakes are the point. Then the making opens out. You begin to find the combinations that interest you. The piece that started as a ceramic bead becomes the centrepiece of a silver setting. The wax casting you made on day three becomes the shape you want to recreate in glass.

We work toward finished pieces - not finished in the sense of perfect, but finished in the sense of complete. Things you will actually wear. Things that will carry the memory of where they were made and what you were thinking about when you made them.

By the end of ten days you will leave with multiple pieces across multiple media, and a beginning understanding of five practices that can be taken home and continued.

January at Il Baciarino

The property in January is different from any other time of year. The light is low and clear. The evenings come early and the fire goes on. The hills are a particular shade of grey-green that only exists in the dead of the Italian winter.

We walk the land in the mornings before the studio opens. We eat long lunches. We sit with what we made the day before and decide where it wants to go next. The pace of January is part of the teaching: it asks you to be present in a way that high season does not.

The sea is still there. Twenty minutes away, cold and clear and entirely worth the drive.

Complete Beginners

Spark is designed for people who have never worked in any of these media before. That is not a consolation: it is the intention. There is something particular about learning five new things simultaneously, in a studio fully equipped for all of them, with two teachers working in their respective practices. The beginner's mind is an asset here, not a liability.

If you already have experience in one or more of these media, you are also welcome. The teaching will meet you where you are.

2027 Dates and Price January 22–31, 2027

€2,600 per person — all inclusive. This covers all tuition across all five media, all materials and tools, all meals and drinks, all day trips and cultural excursions, and pick-up and drop-off from Grosseto train station.

Accommodation is separate and booked directly at Il Baciarino. See below for options and pricing.

Who This Retreat Is For

Spark is for women who have always wanted to make what they wear. Who have walked past jewellery in a gallery and thought, ‘I could imagine making something like that’. Who want to spend ten days in January in Tuscany learning five new things and coming home carrying the evidence on their bodies.

No prior experience in any medium required. Genuine curiosity appreciated. Maximum 8 participants.

Spark is a small retreat — eight participants — and January fills differently from the rest of the season. If it is calling you, write soon.