Video available

This lesson will explore cups and mugs.  What’s the difference you ask? Come to class to find out!! I will demonstrate and discuss coil building and soft slab construction, two foundations of hand building. I will also spend a good amount of time demonstrating and talking about how to make a “good” handle.  This class is an excellent place for beginners to start and for advanced makers to revisit these concepts and skills.   As with all my lessons the goal is to add skills to your making tool box and to also challenge your brain with idea and concepts to think about while making in the realm of functional objects. 

Video recording will be available UNTIL OCTOBER 2026.

Plates Plates Plates

Plates (another lesson from my book) such a fun project and can be as simple or as complex as you want. A wonderful project to practice decoration and glazing ideas. For this lesson I will talk and demonstrate some ways I go about making simple hand built plate forms. Lots of discussion about reductive and additive decoration processes (surface treatment and adding foot ring). I will demonstrate making your own roulettes (texture tool) and in the moment mold making (design) that can be made into bisque molds. I will also demonstrate how were make slabs that survive and don’t warp on us. Bonus - I foresee a lot of problem solving conversation and talk on how to avoid some common pitfalls with making plates.

As with all my lessons the goal is to add skills to your making tool box and to also challenge your brain with idea and concepts to think about while making in the realm of functional objects.

Video recording will be available UNTIL OCTOBER 2026.

Piercing, Cutting and Design - Video

This lesson will be exclusively about how I design, cut and pierce different objects. Piercing is something I use for both functionality and design.  I have work for years on how to do this successful, but I know it can cause you trouble. We will talk clays, times (temperature of clay) to pierce, to glaze or not to glaze, do’s and don’ts, tools, layout and design with all the objects I have in the image section.  If you really want to get a grip on piercing this is the lesson for you!

As with all my lessons the goal is to add skills to your making tool box and to also challenge your brain with idea and concepts to think about while making in the realm of functional objects.

Video recording will be available UNTIL OCTOBER 2026.

Throwing

For those of you who are curious about wheel throwing, and/or have access to a wheel this is for you. Most of the same principles in my hand building are also applied to wheel throwing in a slightly tweaked way! The wheel is where I started my clay journey and is often that romantic notion most people have in their brains about ceramics. I will demonstrate how I approach throwing, cups/mugs/bowls (sm/lg). I’ll focus on how to build your skills, trimming, scaling up in size, how to work on throwing consistent forms. I will also talk a bit about body mechanics- and how important it is to a throwing(and hand building) practice. Gotta keep our bodies working!

As with all my lessons the goal is to add skills to your making tool box and to also challenge your brain with idea and concepts to think about while making in the realm of functional objects.

Video recording will be available UNTIL OCTOBER 2026.

Working with Hard Slabs.

This lesson is a request demo from my book. Let’s play with hard slabs. This subject takes some practice and some patience and a few trick and tips. I’ll discuss some of the pitfalls and troubles that abound with hard slab building. Also define the terms and protocols and why we might choose to work with clay at its most unworkable! I’ll demonstrate how I go about it and some work arounds and tips I have discovered. This will be a long class(2hrs) in which i demonstrate various methods of this technique. Bonus- I will also discuss adding feet to an object the do’s and don’ts :) 

As with all my lessons the goal is to add skills to your making tool box and to also challenge your brain with idea and concepts to think about while making in the realm of functional objects.

Video recording will be available UNTIL OCTOBER 2026.

BOWLS Bowls BOWLS

What’s in your bowl?  After mugs, bowls are my go-to useful object in my home. So simple but sometimes so difficult to get right.  And what is a hand-built bowl? Not all of us are competent on the wheel or at the moment have access at the moment. Hand building bowls is a really wonderful way to flex your coil building skills (the sky is the limit), use your 2-D pattern making ideas to  a 3-D soft slab built bowl.  I will demo both coil building and also talk (demo) making and using templates to create 3-D bowl forms. Bonus- Let’s add a foot ring and talk(demo) trimming! 

As with all my lessons the goal is to add skills to your making tool box and to also challenge your brain with idea and concepts to think about while making in the realm of functional objects.

Video recording will be available UNTIL OCTOBER 2026.