Learning Pottery with Videos and Workshops
Learning pottery at the wheel can be really difficult. It takes good eye hand coordination and lots of patience. Students learning pottery these days have plenty of information at their finger tips through Instagram, Youtube and Facebook. When I was learning back in the 1980’s we had books.
Back then you had pottery in high school if you were lucky. And if you were really serious about it you went to college to study ceramic art. Now you can pick up pottery through art centers via workshops and classes just about anywhere. Pottery is as popular as ever, and there has never been a better time to learn the craft.
This past month I taught two 5 day workshops. The first was at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, on Cape Cod. And the second was at my home studio in Greenfield MA. Both workshops were intense daily learning experiences for the students. The workshops focused on foodie ceramics… functional, useful, utilitarian pottery for the kitchen. The students learned how to make some very complicated forms… everything from soy ewers to citrus juicers, to mugs. Mugs may seem simple, but making a comfortable handle is pretty complicated.
I will be teaching my last workshop for the year on October 12-13. This two day workshop is on “Making Lids the Fit.” Lids are are one of the more perplexing aspects of pottery making. It is so complex to create a lid that fits properly and looks good. So if you are free the weekend of October 12-13 come and take a workshop with me. Take a look at my Learn page here. If it is just not in the cards for next month, sign up for my mailing list to keep up to date on future workshops. I usually have one or two at my home studio and a couple each year at various art centers and pottery guilds throughout the northeast.
If you would like to learn with me online you can check out my YouTube channel. I have a bunch of short 1-2 minute videos called “Quick Pottery”, (even though there is nothing quick about learning or making pottery ;). I have a new video, “Pulling Handles”, where I demonstrate how to pull a handle off of a large pitcher. Pulling a handle off a large pitcher is not easy… take a look here to see the process.
Here are some workshop photos and a few process photos from workshop learning. We have some fun on these workshops, it’s a great small group learning environment, with delicious lunches on the back porch!
