Lessons for individuals and small groups Alongside my own creative practice, I work with individuals and groups of all ages and backgrounds who just want to enjoy the amazing feeling of making pottery - a feeling we can share with our ancestors, who were making pots twenty thousand years ago... My studio in Sale (M33 2DY) can accommodate four people hand building, or two using the wheels. There is ramp access to the studio. I don't run classes as such: you can book a time to suit yourself, for a one-off session or a series, one-to-one or with a friend. You might be a complete beginner or someone who’s worked in clay for a while but could do with a bit of help, perhaps to focus on handles, or to make bigger or thinner pots. If you’ve never worked in clay before but would like to try, there’s some more information further down this page, and/or you could drop me an email or give me a call. (If I don’t answer straight away, it’s probably because my hands are muddy!)

Making pots takes time, and you can’t hurry clay, so if you want to see the whole process through it will take more than one visit. After being made on the wheel, the pots need to dry fairly slowly to get to the “leather hard” stage, when they can be handled more easily, and it’s at this stage that it’s possible to add handles, knobs, sprigs, etc. If you’re hand building you get to this stage much sooner. Then the pots need to be dried very thoroughly before the first firing, which is called “biscuit” and reaches 1000 degrees Celsius (1832 F). The kiln has to come up to temperature slowly and cool slowly, to avoid the pieces shattering. It will be cool enough to open about two and a half days after the firing starts, and the pots can be glazed straight away. They can be dipped in glaze, and/or glaze can be applied with a brush or sponge. Then they are fired again, this time to 1270 degrees (2318 F), to become stoneware: strong, waterproof and food-safe. Most people want to throw pots on the wheel, and even a complete beginner will generally be able to make one or perhaps two pots in their first hour, but many people choose to come for two hours as it is possible to see an improvement in skill levels even in that short time. More than two hours I don't recommend for people who are new to throwing as it needs lots of concentration and uses a whole different set of muscles, so can be surprisingly tiring. Some people choose to come back after a few days when the pots are half dry (two days to a couple of weeks, even, if I wrap them in plastic) to undertake the second stage of the process - turning foot rings and attaching handles - and some choose to come a week or two after that to glaze the pots themselves. The second stage is entirely optional, and if you don't want to do the glazing yourselves you can just choose a glaze from my usual range and I'll glaze them for you.