Hi my name is Chiao-Chih Julia Lu and in this relaxing, meditative clay workshop, we will explore how nature inspires form and flow. You will learn how to build a flower sculpture step by step — the base, leaves, petals, and center — while tuning into the feeling of clay in your hands and the quiet patterns of the natural world. Slow down, feel the rhythm, and let the earth bloom in your palms!

After this workshop, you could be making amazing work like this:

Workshop Steps

In this workshop, we will be doing the following:

1. Making the Base,
2. Making the Leaves
3. Shaping and Drying the Leaves
4. Making the Flower Petals
5. Assembling the Flower
6. Creating the Flower Center
7. Assemble All Elements Together

Workshop Benefits

By the end of the workshop, you will:

• Create a complete flower sculpture from base to bloom.
• Learn essential hand-building and assembly techniques for delicate clay forms.
• Experience a meditative creative process that connects hand, material, and nature’s organic rhythm.
• Develop a deeper understanding of how touch, patience, and observation shape both art and mindfulness.
• Leave with a unique handmade flower sculpture that reflects your personal style and natural inspiration.

Required Materials

1. Clay 2. Wooden modeling tools 3. Ball-shaped stylus tool 4. Clay knife 5. Needle tool 6. Sponge 7. Rolling pin or clay roller 8. Wooden board 9. Slip or water 10. Clay rib or scraper 11. Small brushes

About the artist:

Born in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Chiao-Chih Julia Lu is a ceramic artist whose work explores the dialogue between fragility and endurance through clay. She graduated from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Following her return to Taiwan, she served as an artist assistant at the Yingge Ceramics Museum International Residency Program, later selected as a residency artist at the museum in 2021. Her international experiences include residencies at the European Ceramic Work Center (EKWC) in the Netherlands and the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan—each marking a critical point in her ongoing inquiry into the relationship between nature, consciousness, and transformation.

Lu’s practice centers on black clay and white porcelain, materials she views as metaphors for life’s dual forces. Black clay, born from fire and carbon, holds both an ending and a beginning. Its cracks aren’t scars but openings—spaces where regeneration takes root. White porcelain, translucent and still, embodies the quiet persistence that follows transformation. Together, these two materials create the language of her work: an ongoing dialogue between destruction and renewal, rupture and repair.

Her black-and-white flower sculptures translate these tensions into physical form. Each petal and stem is hand-built slowly, following a rhythm that feels almost meditative. The process invites stillness and demands patience. Within every piece, Lu reveals the subtle agency of clay—its memory, its resistance, its unpredictable life within the kiln. To her, clay is not a passive substance but an active collaborator, one that records time, temperature, and touch. In the firing process, when structures collapse and reform into crystalline textures, she finds a mirror of existence itself—the truth that loss is often the first step toward creation.

Instagram: @chiaochihlu