Upcoming Events
Craft Night @ CRL
In an attempt to add some more candles to the corridor to Spring, there will be a series or open studio craft nights at CRL this winter! Carving, knitting, mending, painting, weaving, molding — any and all artistic endeavors welcome.
Starting at 6:30pm.
Collective Resilience Song Circle
Collective Resilience Song Circle with Bex Lipps. Register here.
Craft Night @ CRL
In an attempt to add some more candles to the corridor to Spring, there will be a series or open studio craft nights at CRL this winter! Carving, knitting, mending, painting, weaving, molding — any and all artistic endeavors welcome.
Starting at 6:30pm.
CRL Restoration Forestry Internship
CRL’s Spring Restoration Forestry internship program will run from April 26-June 20, 2026. Applications are now open!
Composting Workshop
For beginning to experienced composters, this hands-on workshop will cover the basics of how composting works, which materials to use, and the different methods and types of compost bins available. Workshops are led by knowledgeable backyard composting information specialists. Workshop is presented by the OSU Extension Service and will be held at the Community Sharing Garden, 1440 Birch Ave. Please enter through the gate on O street.
CRL/Aprovecho Half-Century Solstice Bash
Aprovecho (now called the Center for Rural Livelihoods) launched in 1976. This year marks 50 years of Aprovecho/CRL working in the world, and we’ll be celebrating our semicentennial with a party of special magnificence on the Summer Solstice.
Check back in Spring 2026 for more details.
Learning Being (Conscious Advanced Mathematics) 2026
Meditation, math professors, and land stewardship
Composting Workshop
For beginning to experienced composters, this hands-on workshop will cover the basics of how composting works, which materials to use, and the different methods and types of compost bins available. Workshops are led by knowledgeable backyard composting information specialists. Workshop is presented by the OSU Extension Service and will be held at the Community Sharing Garden, 1440 Birch Ave. Please enter through the gate on O street.
Workshop with Whitesnake Arts
So often pottery is presented in a classroom environment with commercial bags of clay and pre-programmed kilns, overlooking the meaningful relatinoship that can be created with the source of our materials and the lineage of the craft.
Pottery is an ancient art, intrinsically tied to the land, inspiring our belonging to it as we shape the things we need up from the ground. For this very reason, using local clays is profoundly meaningful. It slows down our “production” mindset and allows us to tune into the immense ecological and geological narrative we are apart of.
We are earth and this craft reminds us that we too are shaped by our choices, becoming vessels that can hold our deepest prayers. Clay is a powerful medium for intuitive exploration of the soul, because it grounds us to the material world as we face the transformative fires of life.
Shaping Earth and Fire immersion is a devotional week of wild embodiment, creative exploration through clay, and community ritual.
Our full five day retreat integrates the creative process with informational hands-on learning. Having a full week to ground together gives us time to dive into wild clay processing and all the things one needs to know to begin working with foraged clays at home, as well as practice various hand building techniques with space and time for the creative process to move through us. We will integrate indoor and outdoor studio time, group time, and solo time.
No prior experience with ceramics is necessary to participate. If the clay calls you, please join and know that no skill is needed for shaping earth, it is inherdently human.
Earthenware
Unlike mid-range and high fire pottery, earthenware specifically refers to low fired ceramics made with wild clays. Pit, ground or open firings are practiced by many cultures around the world, each with rich pottery traditions, cuisines, and histories.
An open fire or small clay oven can only reach bisque temps, it is not hot enough to melt glazes, so techniques such as burnishing and sealing have been used instead of glazes to create finished functional, everyday use ceramics for the kitchen and home.
A key difference between earthenware and glazed pottery is in its durability. While we in the West have prioritized its look and durability, glazed pottery is essentially permanent, taking as much as 1 million years to decompose. Given our global consumption of resources, this can be seen as a significant reason to make more earthenware. At the end of earthenware’s life cycle it can be broken up and composted, returned to the soil, helping to not only trap valuable nutrients but also retain water.
Week Overview
Sunday afternoon/evening: Arrival & settling in, dinner
Monday - Wednesday: Time on the land, foraging and processing clay and other materials, handbuilding and creative exploration, decorating and burnishing
Thursday: Clay lecture and hands-on experimentation: clay chemistry, geological narratives, blending theory, addatives, firing ranges, troubleshooting, and more! Glaze tests!
Friday: All day pit firing ceremony and evening pottery sealing
Saturday Morning: Closing & departure
Costs
Full Workshop Fee is $750, which includes five full days of facilitated learning, making, and ritual with finished fired pieces and all materials for making, as well as organic dinners every night and access to kitchen. Lodging is not included.
Center for Rural Livelihoods is a sustainable education and retreat center in Cottage Grove, Oregon 2 hrs 30 minutes south of Portland. There are a few lodging options onsite for the week. Car and tent camping is $90, a dorm room with a bunk bed is $150 for the week, which can be single occupany or split with other participants.
$150 deposit will hold your place, with a monthly payment option $200 until the retreat. Please be in touch to confirm monthly payment schedule.
Dinners Sunday through Friday night are provided, but breakfast and lunch will be on your own. There are full kitchen and fridge amenities on site. The registration form will confirm your lodging preference, as well as food restrictions and preferences. Camping or room payments will be sent directly to the event center.
Registration now open!
Craft Night @ CRL
In an attempt to add some more candles to the corridor to Spring, there will be a series or open studio craft nights at CRL this winter! Carving, knitting, mending, painting, weaving, molding — any and all artistic endeavors welcome.
Starting at 6:30pm.
Foundations of Foundations with Chris Foraker
Join Chris Foraker of Cascadia Vernacular for an introduction to building foundations, at the Center for Rural Livelihoods
Shaping Earth & Fire Pottery Retreat
Our full five day retreat integrates the creative process with informational hands-on learning. Having a full week to ground together gives us time to dive into wild clay processing and all the things one needs to know to begin working with foraged clays at home, as well as practice various hand building techniques with space and time for the creative process to move through us. We will integrate indoor and outdoor studio time, group time, and solo time.
No prior experience with ceramics is necessary to participate. If the clay calls you, please join and know that no skill is needed for shaping earth, it is inherently human.
Unlike mid-range and high fire pottery, earthenware specifically refers to low fired ceramics made with wild clays. Pit, ground or open firings are practiced by many cultures around the world, each with rich pottery traditions, cuisines, and histories.
An open fire or small clay oven can only reach bisque temps, it is not hot enough to melt glazes, so techniques such as burnishing and sealing have been used instead of glazes to create finished functional, everyday use ceramics for the kitchen and home.
A key difference between earthenware and glazed pottery is in its durability. While we in the West have prioritized its look and durability, glazed pottery is essentially permanent, taking as much as 1 million years to decompose. Given our global consumption of resources, this can be seen as a significant reason to make more earthenware. At the end of earthenware’s life cycle, it can be broken up and composted, returned to the soil, helping to not only trap valuable nutrients but also retain water.
Week Overview
Sunday afternoon/evening: Arrival & settling in, dinner
Monday - Wednesday: Time on the land, foraging and processing clay and other materials, handbuilding and creative exploration, decorating and burnishing
Thursday: Clay lecture and hands-on experimentation: clay chemistry, geological narratives, blending theory, addatives, firing ranges, troubleshooting, and more! Glaze tests!
Friday: All day pit firing ceremony and evening pottery sealing
Saturday Morning: Closing & departure
Costs
Full Workshop Fee is $750, which includes five full days of facilitated learning, making, and ritual with finished fired pieces and all materials for making, as well as organic dinners every night and access to kitchen. Lodging is not included.
Center for Rural Livelihoods is a sustainable education and retreat center in Cottage Grove, Oregon 2 hours and 30 minutes south of Portland. There are a few lodging options onsite for the week. Car and tent camping is $90, a dorm room with a bunk bed is $150 for the week, which can be single occupany or split with other participants.
$150 deposit will hold your place, with a monthly payment option of $100 or $200. Please be in touch to confirm monthly payment schedule.
Dinners Sunday through Friday night are provided, but breakfast and lunch will be on your own. There are full kitchen and fridge amenities on site. The registration form will confirm your lodging preference, as well as food restrictions and preferences. Camping or room payments will be sent directly to the event center.
Compost Giveaway
Free Compost Giveaway on Saturday October 11, from 10-2pm at the Community Sharing Garden, 1440 Birch Ave in Cottage Grove. We will have 90 yards of compost delivered, come through and load up to get your beds ready for next season and fall and winter growing. Bring trucks, trailers, tarps, and buckets.
Presented by Center for Rural Livelihoods and Lane County Waste Wise!
Agroforestry Farm Tour
Optional Dinner at 7:00!
Join us for a tour of South Valley Agroforestry farms and an evening gathering at the Center for Rural Livelihoods. Come discover how these farms are putting agroforestry into practice to solve their farm goals and meet important regional conservation priorities.
Registration is closed for this event.
Introduction to Silvopasture
Join Abel Kloster of Center for Rural Livelihoods and Resilience Permaculture Design and Mark Batcheler of the National Agroforestry Center for our upcoming in-person Silvopasture workshop. We will discuss strategies for integrating animals into sustainable agroforestry systems and tour a series of grazing contexts on the CRL campus including orchards, oak woodlands, and riparian restoration sites.
This series is offered by donation and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Please come prepared with comfortable clothes for light outdoor activities and your own lunch. Please sign up for the workshop series here.
Prescribed Fire Field Workshop at Native Oaks Ridge
Learn skills and build relationships to prepare for a prescribed burn by South Willamette Prescribed Burn Association and Center for Rural Livelihoods
Into Witchin Summer Camp
Summer Camp for girls & gender expansive youth, ages . An empowering week of nature connection, expressive arts, and natural magic! Tiered equity pricing available. Reach out to team@wildkindred.org | 571 643 8110
Basket Making Workshop
Special Two-Day Basket-Making Workshop, August 2-3 in Cottage Grove, $300-$150 sliding scale: Kara Huntermoon, Hosanna White, Ryder Coen co-teach as we help you complete the entire process of making a round willow basket. We heard your request to do this outside of pollen season!
Email karahuntermoon@gmail.com for details and to register.
Register now: This class is limited to 12 students, and it fills up fast!
Earth Arts Summer Camp
Join us for a fun filled week of nature immersion, hand crafts, and group games at the forests and gardens of Center for Rural Livelihoods. Earth pigment painting, wool felting, weaving, natural dyeing, swimming, hiking, and more!
More info at whitesnakearts.com
Regenerating Landscapes, Remaking Society Summer Residential Program
This program is suited for those who want to dig in – both physically and intellectually – to the intersection of social change and ecological restoration. It’s great for those who view community level organizing as fundamental to systemic change and are seeking to ground this organizing in hands-on skills to restore native habitat, especially with an eye towards producing a yield to support the material needs of the human community. Some may find this program to be rigorous and demanding making it ideal and rewarding for highly motivated folks seeking a fully immersive experience.
Learn More here: https://www.rurallivelihoods.org/residential-training-program
