Ceramic Sculpture Art Course
This six-week ceramic sculpture course is ideal for beginners and experienced makers alike who want to explore or advance their skills in ceramic sculpture.
What You’ll Learn:
You’ll be taught foundational sculpting skills for small to medium scale sculptures, with one-on-one guidance to help bring your unique ideas to life. Ceramic artist Aoife Billings will walk you through every step and technique she uses in her own ceramic practice.
Upcoming Term Dates:
Six-week course, either:
Tuesdays 6.30-8.30PM
March 24, 31
April 7, 14, 21, 28
or
Wednesdays 6.30-8.30PM
March 25
April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
Class Atmosphere:
This relaxed and friendly workshop is LGBTQI+ inclusive and welcomes all skill levels, from beginners to more experienced makers. There’s no pressure for perfection here. Aoife prioritises process, learning, play, and building community.
Payment:
Aoife offers a cash payment option to help you avoid online service fees. If you’d like to take up this offer, just email her at pinkemberceramics@gmail.com to arrange it.
All materials and firing costs are covered in the six-week course price
$450 Online booking (2 hours x 6)
$360 Cash (2 hours x 6)
Covid Safety:
Let Aoife know if you have covid, been in contact with someone who has covid, or you have symptoms; Aoife will reschedule your ticket for a date in the future.
Your Teacher:
Aoife Billings (she/her) is a Narrm (Melbourne) based interdisciplinary artist with a dedicated practice of ceramics. She has been teaching art workshops for over ten years, including at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Shepparton Art Museum, Monash University, numerous local councils and Pink Ember Studio. Aoife co-founded Pink Ember Studio (Coburg North) in 2018, an artist-run not-for-profit which has 19 studio artists, an events and workshop space, as well as a dedicated ceramics studio.
How to book via cash payment:
Email pinkemberceramics@gmail.com with the following details:
First name:
Last name:
Class day (Tuesdays or Wednesdays):
Special Requirements:
How to book via online payment:
Khooneh Khaleh: A Moment to Love - Community Paper-Making
Khooneh Khaleh: A Moment to Love - Community Paper-Making
In wild times, love as an act of survival.
"A Moment to Love" is the second workshop of the Khooneh Khaleh series. We invite our community to gather once again to share love and transform your thoughts and feelings into one shared community paper.
Facilitated by Aaron Billings, who is primarily a comics and textile artist based in Narrm, on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people. This workshop invites you to hold grief and care in your hands, turning words into material memory. What you write remains yours unless you choose to share. Together, we'll create something beautiful from our tenderness, reminding ourselves and each other what we're protecting.
Snacks and drinks are provided.
Free workshop but limited capacity, please book your spot!
Khooneh Khaleh: The Celebration of Shame
Reclaiming queer shame through making a shared wedding dress
The Celebration of Shame is a participatory workshop exploring shame as a shared experience shaped by heteronormative and patriarchal narratives. Facilitated by Melbourne-based artist and researcher Jodi Kashani, the workshop invites participants to reflect on personal and collective experiences of shame related to gender identity and sexuality.
Drawing from their upbringing in Iran, where wedding dresses symbolised deeply embedded heteronormative expectations, Jodi uses storytelling to open space for reflection and dialogue. Participants will then contribute painted symbols or images representing their experiences of shame onto a shared wedding dress.
Food: Special food and tea will be served for the event.
Free workshop but limited capacity, please book your spot!
Book here: https://events.humanitix.com/the-celebration-of-shame
Speaking to Pictures, Zine
Comics come alive at Speaking to Pictures!
Speaking to Pictures is our ongoing reading series in which we get writers to perform their work with the aid of pictures (it's in the name). This time around we are inviting only comic artists, to coincide with The Festival of the Photocopier 2026, the biggest and best zine festival in Melbourne!
Featuring:
Fionn McCabe
Scott Wrigg
Ben Juers
Benedicte O'Leary Rutherford
Eloise Grills
and Matt Blue
It's going to be a comic sensation.
Starting at 7pm, to accommodate people coming from the Festival of the Photocopier we will begin readings at 7:30.
Doors - 7pm
Readings - 7:30pm
Intermission - 8pm
Readings - 8:20pm
Goodbyes - 11pm
Cheese, grapes, bread and dips will be provided and there will be alcoholic and non alcoholic drink available to purchase through donation.
Bookings essential, limited capacity, get your tickets now!
All profits go towards the readers and Pink Ember studio, a proudly queer art studio providing affordable spaces and opportunities for queer artists.
Browse the ‘Burg
Join local artist Aaron Billings on a guided tour of the creative spaces of Coburg. Along the way experience art in a myriad of forms including screen printing, ceramics, woodworking, mozaic, puppetry, painting and more. Meet artists in their studio and see what they have been working on!
Aaron is a textile and comic artist who runs Pink Ember studio, he has hosted Browse the Burg for 3 years now
'There is nothing quite like seeing what an artist is doing in their studio, it is a rare privilege!' - Aaron Billings
Participating Studios and Timeline
-Troppo Print Studio - Meet here at 9:50am for a 10am start
-Norms Warehouse - Travel here by 11am
-Set/Reset gallery - Travel here by 11:45am
-Pink Ember Studio - Travel here by 12:30pm
-Coburg Studios - Travel here by 1:20pm
If you are unable to join in for the entire day, you can meet us at the location as indicated by the timeline above.
There will be an afterparty happening at Coburg Studios.
Comics Off the Page Live: Exhibition Launch and Performances
What happens to comic artists when they’re taken off the page to perform live, or installed in the gallery space?
RMIT’s non/fictionLab have teamed up with Speaking to Pictures & Pink Ember Studio to challenge 14 creators (Gutter Stars comics collective) to play with their comic practices and experiment with voice, performance and 3D forms. See and hear new work by visionary creators.
Presented by RMIT’s non/fictionLab, Speaking to Pictures and Pink Ember Studio.
Part of RMIT’s non/fictionLab and Pink Ember Studios’ ‘Comics Off The Page’ event series at EWF25.
Pay What You Wish - Bookings essential HERE
Speaking to Pictures
Speaking to Pictures is a poetry, comics and zine reading night, bringing the zine and poetry communities of Narrm together at last.
Speaking to Pictures
The next edition of Speaking to Pictures is here, featuring Ben Juers, Gareth Morgan, Melody Ellis, David Talal Motamed and Ainslee Meredith.
Pipes
The inaugural exhibition of Pink Embers’ artists on their brand new gallery wall, with catering from Wazzup Falafel.
Artists explore the many associations of pipes. A pipe is a tube that flows, a pipe is a wind instrument, a pipe is a carrier, something to put inside your pipe- and smoke it.
Our initial inspiration for the exhibition comes from our recent trouble with the pipes at Pink Ember. The toilet breaking down, sewage explosion and the subsequent flooding. This got us thinking about how fragile the infrastructure that we live in and with, is. As a not for profit ARI, sudden failures, like what happened with our pipes alert us to how we are so beholden to so much outside our control. PIPES is an exploration of the tubes that bind us together - exploring the many associations of pipes.
Browse the Burg
Pink Ember - A queer art collective in Coburg, invites community members to follow local artist Aaron Billings as he guides you around Coburg's creative spaces - introducing you to artists and their art practices’ in motion - including Ceramics, Mosaic, Puppetry, Screen Printing, Painting and more.
Visit Troppo Print Studio, Coburg Studios and Pink Ember Studio to meet the artists, glimpse different disciplines and mediums through demonstrations.
Schedule
2:00pm - Meet at Troppo Print Studio: 503 Sydney Rd, Coburg VIC 3058
3:25pm - Meet at Coburg Studios: 69 Charles St, Coburg VIC 3058
4:25pm - Meet at Pink Ember Studio: 22 Allenby St, Coburg North VIC 3058
Speaking to Pictures Winter 2024
The next edition of Speaking to Pictures is here, featuring Sholto Buck, Steven Christie, Bootleg Comics and Zarah Butcher-Mcgunnigle.
Speaking to Pictures is an ongoing reading event hosted at Pink Ember Studio. We bring together poets, comic artists, writers and artists to present work accompanied by images.
Speaking to Pictures - Pink Ember x Hellenic Museum
Join Pink Ember Studio and the Hellenic Museum for a special edition of Speaking to Pictures: a performance night where poets, comedians and zine makers come together and present their work through pictures, this time drawing inspiration from ancient Greece and the Hellenic Museum.
Come along to see something surprising, hear something compelling and explore the museum. A cash bar will also be available. Doors will open at 6.30PM ahead of 7PM readings, featuring the talents of:
Bella Li
Aoife Bilings
Ele Jenkins
Elias Youssef
Aaron Billings
Tobias Fulton
Stacy Gougoulis
Marc Pearson
Frances Cannon
Kathy Sarpi
Brad Mc Donald
The Great Queer Pottery Throwdown 2024
The Great Queer Pottery Throwdown is returning for its second year, where contestants will compete for the title of 2024’s Throwdown Champions of the Year.
Contestants will be able to compete in a maximum of 3 mini-games, choosing from 8 pottery themed mini-games. Categories range from small sculpture, hand building, sgraffito and wheel throwing, all judged by a panel of three prominent members of Pink Ember Studio.
At the end of the day judges will announce the winners of each category and round out the competition by awarding individual titles and hand crafted trophies to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd winners.
During the day there will be a mini artists market pop-up, where you will be able to purchase wares from local artists and raffle prizes to win.
The 2024 Throwdown event will be raising funds for Pink Ember Studio to further develop the studio space by installing a gallery wall for future exhibitions. An inhouse gallery space will create a home for LQBTQI+ artists to exhibit their work to share with the community.