Join Marie the Potter on Tuesday, May 19th from 5:30 to 8:00 as she teaches you how to center clay on a wheel, how to form a cylinder, cut the skirt off and cut the piece from the wheel. Ultimately you’ll make several small bowls or dishes.

Important Information About This Class

This class was designed with beginners in mind, and those wishing to improve their wheel throwing skills. 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.

Prepare for Class!

Dress comfortably and casually as pottery throwing tends to be a messy endeavor. Bring an apron if you’d like to wear one but the clay washes out of clothes beautifully!

Remove bracelets and rings, tie up long hair and 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.

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, Marie 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 approximately 4 weeks 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. Finished classwork must be picked up within 90 days of notification that it’s ready. At the end of 90 days, student projects will be disposed of at the gallery’s discretion.

To allow the most individualized attention possible, class size is limited to 6 students, 1 per wheel.

The all inclusive price of $79 for this class includes all supplies, tool usage, glaze selection, 2 kiln firings, and expert 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 Marie to build on your newly established skills.
• Enroll in a Novice Class where you are taken through the process from throwing to glaze and firing. To maximize your chances for success, we recommend that you previously attended at least two beginner classes
• Apply for a Pottery Membership at ARTworks Vass. Click here to learn more.

More Important Information:

• Beginners are welcome.
• Dress to mess or bring an apron.
• Children age 14 and older may attend class independently.
• Registrations are non-refundable and cannot be rescheduled
• Registration allows for 1 person per class. Only those who have registered may participate.
• Class starts promptly as scheduled.
• At ARTworks Vass, you’re always welcome to bring your own Nibbles and Sips to class.
• You will be notified when your project is ready to pick up.  We will hold it for 90 days with monthly notifications by text or phone. If you haven’t requested an extension or picked up your work within 90 days, your project will be disposed of at the gallery’s discretion.
• Click here to read the ARTworks Vass Disclosure and Liability Waiver for All Classes and Events

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 6.