Pillow Box Workshop with Karen vanBarneveld
August 29th & 30th, 2026 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day.
The workshop will be held in Prescott, Arizona
Join us for a two-day workshop exploring the art of creating pillow boxes from slabs of clay. Whether you call it slab building or hand building, this process is both approachable and fun—perfect for exploring form, texture, and personal style!
Day One (August 29):
Begin by constructing your box using a template of your choice—diamond, square, rectangle, octagon, and more. You’ll learn how to shape your form and add feet to support your design.
Day Two (August 30):
Refine and complete your piece. You’ll cut the box open, clean the interior, and learn how to create a clean delineation between lid and base for glaze resist. After resealing your box, you’ll have time to embellish with handles, decorative tops, or side notches.
Each participant will complete a pillow box that will be bisque-fired after the workshop. Pieces will be ready for glazing.This means you will need to glaze it at a later time. The last photo shows a bisque-fired pillow box.
A Note from Karen:
When learning to make these boxes from Scott Young somewhere around 1998 at an Aardvark Clay & Supply workshop in Laguna Beach, CA, I was completely and utterly hooked! As a child, I was always burying treasure in our back yards and then retrieving a short time later. These boxes are an homage to those times of finding treasures in boxes, buried or not.
I look forward to spending time with you all and helping you make your own treasure boxes.
Karen vanBarneveld
Always a child at heart
Bio for Karen vanBarneveld
For over twenty-two years I learned, absorbed, and taught fine art ceramics. Some in Southern California and some in Prescott, Arizona. I have taught workshops in several states and used to host other internationally known artist’s workshops in my own studio. During those twenty-two years I taught wheel thrown, coiled, and slab-built vessels of all sizes and shapes. After about the first ten years, I settled mostly on the slab-built aesthetic pieces that, for me, allowed me to be most creative in texture.
Ever since my early childhood, I loved the idea of hidden and buried treasures. The pillow and pagoda boxes I have made over the years gave me a lot of creative freedom to embellish those hidden treasures to my liking and then, just as we let our children grow up and move away, I let them go to new parents that loved them as much as I did. Art and ceramics have provided me with a beautiful outlet for expression and an understanding of my connection to the earth.
Since retiring from playing in the mud, I have taught yoga, HeartMath and energy medicine in groups and privately and continue this path to help others find peace, balance, and harmony. In my third act of this lifetime, I find more beauty and gratitude for all that this life has taught and brought me, the lightness, and the heaviness. All provide opportunities for growth.
Infinite blessings,
Karen
Pillow Box Workshop with Karen vanBarneveld
August 29th & 30th, 2026 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day.
The workshop will be held in Prescott, Arizona
Join us for a two-day workshop exploring the art of creating pillow boxes from slabs of clay. Whether you call it slab building or hand building, this process is both approachable and fun—perfect for exploring form, texture, and personal style!
Day One (August 29):
Begin by constructing your box using a template of your choice—diamond, square, rectangle, octagon, and more. You’ll learn how to shape your form and add feet to support your design.
Day Two (August 30):
Refine and complete your piece. You’ll cut the box open, clean the interior, and learn how to create a clean delineation between lid and base for glaze resist. After resealing your box, you’ll have time to embellish with handles, decorative tops, or side notches.
Each participant will complete a pillow box that will be bisque-fired after the workshop. Pieces will be ready for glazing.This means you will need to glaze it at a later time. The last photo shows a bisque-fired pillow box.
A Note from Karen:
When learning to make these boxes from Scott Young somewhere around 1998 at an Aardvark Clay & Supply workshop in Laguna Beach, CA, I was completely and utterly hooked! As a child, I was always burying treasure in our back yards and then retrieving a short time later. These boxes are an homage to those times of finding treasures in boxes, buried or not.
I look forward to spending time with you all and helping you make your own treasure boxes.
Karen vanBarneveld
Always a child at heart
Bio for Karen vanBarneveld
For over twenty-two years I learned, absorbed, and taught fine art ceramics. Some in Southern California and some in Prescott, Arizona. I have taught workshops in several states and used to host other internationally known artist’s workshops in my own studio. During those twenty-two years I taught wheel thrown, coiled, and slab-built vessels of all sizes and shapes. After about the first ten years, I settled mostly on the slab-built aesthetic pieces that, for me, allowed me to be most creative in texture.
Ever since my early childhood, I loved the idea of hidden and buried treasures. The pillow and pagoda boxes I have made over the years gave me a lot of creative freedom to embellish those hidden treasures to my liking and then, just as we let our children grow up and move away, I let them go to new parents that loved them as much as I did. Art and ceramics have provided me with a beautiful outlet for expression and an understanding of my connection to the earth.
Since retiring from playing in the mud, I have taught yoga, HeartMath and energy medicine in groups and privately and continue this path to help others find peace, balance, and harmony. In my third act of this lifetime, I find more beauty and gratitude for all that this life has taught and brought me, the lightness, and the heaviness. All provide opportunities for growth.
Infinite blessings,
Karen