Clay

Love artisan pottery?

The Craft Guild’s popular clay program offers more than just working with clay; our students are encouraged to spend time in the studio creating, learning, and building a sense of community. You’ll learn the entire process of working with clay, from raw material to glazing, and your work will be finished in a high-fire gas reduction or raku kiln. Spacious and well-lit, our clay studios include numerous wheels and hand-building areas, and a well-equipped glaze room.

  • This class will introduce you to the joy of creating beautiful, sound, and well-crafted art with clay. Instruction will include essential techniques including pinch pot, coil, and slab construction. Projects will encourage personal creativity using texture and other decorative enhancement. Instruction in glazing will be included. All levels are welcome. (Wheel access during this class time is available to Intermediate/Advanced students only.)

  • This class will introduce you to creating pottery using a potter’s wheel. You’ll learn the steps of “throwing” basic forms with stoneware clay in a relaxed, fun atmosphere. You will also learn how to glaze your work. No previous wheelthrowing experience required.

    Prerequisite: Introduction to Ceramics or equivalent experience. (Int/adv wheelthrowers are also welcome)

  • This class will offer instruction in techniques in wheel throwing, as well as methods of surface decoration and glazing. This class is for intermediate and advanced students only and encourages learning, creativity, and community!

  • This class will expand upon the handbuilding skills learned in earlier classes.

    Prerequisite: Introduction to Ceramics or equivalent experience. 

  • Students will create either abstract or representational sculptures of their choosing and receive instruction and assistance with building techniques, texture application, and overall form, as well as how to do this all more efficiently when working with larger work. In addition to the class on abstract forms we are now offering a figurative study of the human head in clay. These classes are a great fit for anyone who wants to try an imaginative rather than functional approach to creating with clay.  

    Intermediate/Advanced

  • This class will introduce you to the special firing technique known as Raku. Adapted from a Japanese technique, American Raku creates highly variable surface designs that cannot be replicated in other kilns. Over the 8 weeks students will be schooled in use of metallic glazes, horsehair and feather firing, geometric design work, and obvara methods.

    Raku will return in Fall

Clay Studio Open Labs for Current Enrolled Students

A woman with glasses and short brown hair sculpting a large bust of a face with two tall horns using a tool in our clay studio

The Clay Studio offers Sunday lab time to currently enrolled students. Clay labs will be held on Sundays from 9:00am to 12:00pm, 12:00pm to 3:00pm, and 3:00pm to 6:00pm. Each 3-hour session is $10 and can be paid in cash to the lab monitor or by credit card using the Square on the day of attendance.           

Remember! You must currently be registered for an adult clay class to attend clay labs!

BOOK NOW

Having trouble registering? Try booking our classes directly in Amilia here.

People working on pottery at pottery wheel stations in a classroom.
White ceramic cups with embossed tribal patterns on a metal shelf.
A man with glasses and a beard shaping a large clay pot on a pottery wheel in a ceramics studio. Other people are working on pottery projects in the background.
White ceramic cups with black bee illustrations on a metal display shelf.
A woman with glasses and a blue t-shirt working on a large ceramic vase with black floral patterns, seated at a worktable in a pottery studio with shelves labeled by days of the week in the background.
Woman using a hand saw to cut clay cylinders in a ceramics studio or workshop.