“I really enjoy ceramics,” Rodriguez told the News&Guide this week. “It’s what I have been working on for the last 20 years. And I enjoy sharing what I know with other people. I especially love it when [students] make new discoveries when we are together in a classroom setting. For example, wheel throwing is really hard to learn and it can be difficult to center that piece of clay. Then they are doing it and then they are doing well, and that makes it all worthwhile for me as a teacher.”

Rodriguez’s workshop with the Art Association, “Exploring Form and Surface with Ceramic Wall Sculpture,” will run 10 a.m.-4 p.m. for three days starting Friday.

“We are very fortunate to have such unique and special artists who want to come and teach here in Jackson at the Art Association as visiting artists,” said Bronwyn Minton, executive director of the Art Association. “Their expertise in such specialized mediums offers Jackson wonderfully distinctive opportunities to learn from masters in their craft.”

Rodriguez is a veteran educator and credits his career through collegiate study while commanding classrooms as a teacher. While he has taught elementary, high school and college-level courses, he has only recently moved to hosting smaller workshops. The intimate setting of small groups has allowed him to take deeper dives into building specific skills, he said.

“I’m excited about these workshops and to engage with people who are really interested in learning,” he said. “It’s fun to work closely with people like this where we can build a rapport. I’m always looking forward to helping people along their artistic path.”

Last year Rodriguez showed his work in the Center for the Arts in a show titled “Subversive Souvenirs” as part of the Wyoming Humanities and Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund’s Diverse Arts Initiative.

“My work is about the many borders I have crossed in my life,” he wrote in his bio on his website. “I carry many of these borders with me in my memories and produce work about these physical and psychological borders. As a product of multiple cultures and identities, my art is used as a vehicle to explore the creation of my personal narrative within the hybrid cultures of the borderlands.”

Rodriguez graduated from the University of Montana with a Masters of Fine Art focusing on ceramics. He later received the Morales Teaching Fellowship from the University of Utah to teach and expand his studio practice.

He has been honored with a best of show award in the international exhibition Clay on the Wall, sponsored by Texas Tech University, and displayed at the LH Underwood Center for the Arts. He was also recently included in “Contemporary Clay,” which was displayed at the Western Colorado Center for the Arts, among many more honors.

Through its workshops the Art Association looks to support an array of skill sets from the budding to the more advanced artist. Rodriguez said coming with an earnest desire to learn and participate is first and foremost the best way to be prepared for the workshop.

“The thing with clay is that there are so many different ways to work with it,” Rodriguez said. “Wonderful discoveries will happen in small groups. There have been times where I have learned things from my students. Small workshops can be a hotbed of discovery for the teacher and the students.”

Tuition is $445. Class is limited to 10 students. Visit ArtAssociation.org for details.