CARVE YOUR VISION
An immersive stone-carving retreat by PEDRA casa estudi
June 14ā21, 2026 Ā· Llombai, Valencia
Led by Empar Juanes
Herbert Hofmann Prize Winner 2024 Ā· LOEWE Craft Prize Finalist 2025
A week to slow down, create, and explore stone carving as a medium of expression.
This is not a conventional workshop.
Carve Your Vision is an intimate week-long immersive experience designed for creatives who want to deepen their artistic practice through stone carving, contemporary jewellery, and meaningful creative dialogue.
Over the course of seven days, you will live and work inside a beautifully restored 200-year-old countryside house that serves as both the home and studio of artist Empar Juanes. Together with a small group of only four participants, you will explore stone not simply as a material, but as a medium for artistic expression.
Through hands-on guidance, shared meals, long conversations, and focused studio time, you will develop your own work within a fully equipped and inspiring workshop while immersing yourself in a slower and more intentional creative rhythm with a very personalized guidance.
Why this workshop is different
Most workshops focus on technical instruction alone.
This experience is designed around something deeper:
developing sensitivity, artistic vision, and a personal relationship with material.
The small group format allows for close mentorship, individual attention, and a level of immersion that is rarely possible in larger educational settings.
Every aspect of the week has been carefully curated ā from the studio environment to the creative methodology, the shared living experience, and the conversations around art and professional development.
This is a space for focused creation, reflection, experimentation, and connection.
What You Will Learn
Stone Carving Fundamentals
Learn how to use professional stone carving machinery and techniques to cut, carve, shape, and polish gemstones safely and confidently, exploring different techniques like lapidary, cameo, intaglioā¦ to a larger scale of stone carving.
Artistic Exploration
Move beyond technique and search your artistic voice, experimenting with stone as a vehicle for personal expression, narrative, form, and material exploration.
Concept to Final Piece
Develop a small series of your own contemporary jewellery pieces from initial idea and concept through to experimentation, execution and finishing.
Learn The Tricks. Keep Working With Stone.
You will return home not only with finished pieces, but also with the technical knowledge, creative confidence, and practical tools to continue incorporating stone carving into your future practice independently.
A highly personalised experience
With only four participants to ensure the most personalized guidance, the workshop is intentionally designed to create space for:
close mentorship,
thoughtful conversations,
individual feedback,
and a deeply focused creative atmosphere.
We adapt to your personal needs and goals.
Who this workshop is for
If you ever wanted to work with stone. If the daily routine donāt allow you to take the necessary time and space concentrate in your artistic projects. If you are seeking to connect with other makers or jewellers. If you have a creative blockage or If you think a professional and experienced guidance through your artistic process will bring you further.
This experience is designed for:
artists and makers,
jewellers,
architects and designers,
creatives seeking a deeper material practice,
or anyone longing for a slower and more intentional creative experience.
More than technical perfection, the workshop values curiosity, sensitivity, experimentation, and commitment to process.
No previous experience in stone carving is required.
About the experience
Shared Living & Studio Practice
Participants will stay together inside PEDRA, Emparās home-studio in the Valencian countryside. A unique opportunity to visit the studio of an award-winning jeweller. The experience combines daily studio work with communal living, shared meals, and inspiring conversations around art, process, and creativity.
Inspiring Environment
The retreat takes place in Llombai, a small mediterranean village surrounded by nature and literally birds singing from sunrise to sunset ā an ideal setting to disconnect from high speed busy life, routine to reconnect with yourself.
Mediterranean Cuisine
Healthy homemade Mediterranean meals are prepared daily and shared together throughout the week. Everyday in the evening we cook together. A romantic moment of sharing, having dinner in the quiet street, enjoying the summer nights in the village.
Meaningful Connection
The intimacy of the group creates a rare opportunity to exchange ideas, experiences, and perspectives with like-minded creatives from different backgrounds. In PEDRA casa estudi, the groups are carefully selected to learn from each other, expand the network and build meaningful connections.
Meet Empar Juanes
Empar Juanes has developed her professional career between two worlds: architecture and contemporary jewellery.
In 2025, she was selected as a finalist for the prestigious LOEWE Craft Prize, with the award ceremony taking place at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid. In 2024, she received the renowned Herbert Hofmann Prize during Schmuck in Munich, one of the most respected international exhibitions for contemporary jewellery.
Her work explores the delicate limits of stone through a highly precise and meditative carving process. Guided by geometry, material sensitivity, and architectural thinking, she transforms raw stone into ethereal contemporary jewellery pieces that challenge the perceived weight and rigidity of the material.
After spending over a decade living between Germany and the Netherlands, balancing architecture and artistic practice, Empar returned to her village near Valencia in 2022. There, she restored a 200-year-old house and founded PEDRA ā an educational and artistic project dedicated to stone carving and contemporary jewellery.
Workshop Details
Location: Llombai, Valencia, Spain
Dates : September 13ā20, 2026
(Arrival Sunday afternoon ā Departure Sunday afternoon)
Languages: English Ā· Spanish Ā· German
Group Size: Maximum 4 participants
Investment: 1.650 ā¬
Deposit: 350ā¬ to secure your place. Payment method: bank transfer, PayPal or Bizum.
Included:
7 nights accommodation in shared double rooms
All daily meals
Airport/train station transfers
Full workshop access
Basic soft stones for practice
Professional stone carving tools and machinery
and a fully immersive creative experience in a highly personalised setting.
Participants are asked to bring their own selected stones for the development of their personal final project.
Application Process
Because of the intimate nature of the workshop and the limited number of participants, applications are carefully reviewed to ensure a thoughtful and compatible group dynamic.
To apply, please fill this form with a few words about your who you are, where do you come from, your creative background or interests, and why you would like to join this experience.
Methodology
Program
Day 1: Learning fundamental stone-carving techniques (adapted to the participants' levels).
Day 2: Focus on the conceptual direction of the project.
Who are we? What do we want to express, and how are we going to express it?
Presentation on contemporary jewelry, showcasing renowned artists and unique pieces for general inspiration.
Brainstorming ideas and concepts.
Sketching and modeling using plastiline, paper, cardboard, brass, paint, etc.
Days 3, 4, 5: Developing the pieces.
Each participant will work on their pieces. I will guide you closely, answering any questions and demonstrating additional techniques and tricks. As your instructor, I will encourage you to experiment and push your creative boundaries.
We will have a one-on-one discussion in the morning to talk about the concept, and at the end of the afternoon session, there will be a group discussion.
Day 6: Excursion to the city.
Visit to Valencia old city center (Mercat Central, la Llotja, the Cathedral and Micalet Tower, etc.) and the "Centro de Arte Hortensia Herrero," featuring art pieces by Alexander Calder, Chillida, Olafur Eliasson, Joan MirĆ³, Tomas Saraceno, Anish Kapoor, David Hockney, and many more!
Day 7: Closing Day
Last finishing of the pieces.
We will focus on writing the statement for your piece, pricing it, and improving your communication skills in art.
We will discuss about portfolio, branding yourself as an artist or designer, and how to approach galleries.
Information on the most important events in the contemporary jewelry world, as well as competitions you should consider applying to!
We will have working sessions of 8h, so we also have time to relax, take a walk, cooking together and enjoy the evening.
For one week, I invite you to step away from distraction and immerse yourself fully in material, process, and creation.
This house becomes a shared space for making, observing, questioning, and creating slowly.
A return to process, material, and attention.
Iām looking forward to welcoming a small group of people willing to immerse themselves deeply in their creative practice.
I hope you will be part of it.
ā Empar Juanes