10/12/23 Beginning Wheel Throwing Pottery Class with Beth Roy
Have you always wanted to try throwing pottery on a wheel?!? Now's the time!
Join Beth Roy on Thursday, Oct. 12th from 5:30 to 8:30 pm as she teaches you how to center clay on a wheel, how to form a cylinder and ultimately how to make several small bowls or dishes. She'll also demonstrate how the bottom of thrown pottery is trimmed or finished.
Important Information About This Class
This class was designed with absolute beginners in mind, and we hope that the information that follows will help you to approach it with realistic expectations and a hopeful beginners mindset.
If you've never ever touched clay previously, we highly recommend that you join us for one of our hand building classes before trying wheel throwing. They'll provide you with a feel for clay and the manners in which we manipulate it. These classes also ensure successful beautiful larger scale projects to most everyone who attends them.
No one easily creates big beautiful bowls when they sit down at the wheel for the first time. It's a process, and it takes time to master it. The skills that you learn in each class will build on one another, and we encourage you to embrace this progress as a measure of your success.
Dress comfortably and casually as pottery throwing tends to be a messy endeavor. Bring an apron if you'd like to wear one.
Trim your fingernails before class. While short nails aren't required, we find that it's a bit easier to throw pottery with them.
Each wheel throwing class will last for 3 hours. This includes 2 1/2 hours of instruction and a 1/2 hour for cleanup. As potters in a community studio, we strive to leave our work spaces better than we found them.
No one easily creates big beautiful pottery bowls when they sit down at the wheel for the first time. (This one was worth mentioning twice! lol) And while we love the movie, Ghost, throwing pottery on the wheel is more challenging and less sexy than Demi and Patrick made it look.
You can expect to yield 2 - 4 miniature masterpieces from this class. These pieces tend to include tiny bowls, coasters, spoon rests, and other similarly sized forms. As your skills grow, the size of your thrown pieces will grow too.
After class, Beth will finish each piece that you create. They'll be trimmed, dried, fired in our kiln, glazed, dried, and fired in our kiln again. This entire process can take up to a month, depending on the humidity level, and the time that it takes your pottery to thoroughly dry between kiln firings. We'll update you by phone or text when your pottery is ready for pickup.
To allow the most individualized attention possible, class size is limited to 5 students, 1 per wheel.
Beginners are welcome, and those age fourteen and older are invited to attend.
The all inclusive price of this class includes supplies, tool usage, glaze selection, 2 kiln firings, and instruction.
But I Want More!
Two of the most common things that we hear at the end of a wheel throwing class are, "I was just getting the hang of it!" and "I don't want to stop throwing!", and we love this enthusiasm!
We have several solutions for this:
- Enroll in another session with Beth to build on your newly established skills.
- Schedule and rent wheel time to continue your practice independently. This option works well for those who are developing confidence in their skill set. To maximize your chances for success, we recommend that you attend at least two classes with Beth before embarking on this independent study. No instruction is given when you rent a wheel, although we'll be happy to suggest a few online tutorials that may be helpful to you while you work.
- Apply for a Pottery Membership at ARTworks Vass. Click here to learn more.
Other Important Information:
- Registration allows for 1 person per class. Only those who have registered may participate.
- For all of our classes, we have a "No Refund Policy". For Wheel Throwing Pottery Classes specifically, because there are only 5 Students in each class, if you don't attend for any reason we'll provide you with 2 tiny pottery bowls created by one of our instructors. These will be of the "sauce size" typically created in class.
- Bring an apron if you'd like to use one.
- Class starts promptly, so be sure to arrive on time.
- Registrations are non-refundable.
- Click here to read the ARTworks Vass Disclosure and Liability Waiver for All Classes and Events
At ARTworks Vass, we encourage you to bring your artful heart along with nibbles and sips to make your experience more joyful.
Register online here or call us at 910-245-4129 to save your space in class.
Click here to request more information on scheduling a private class for a group of 5.