The Pottery Studio classes operate over two sessions, the first class will be making the work(s) of your choice. This will be instructed by one of our teachers who will run through some basic hand-building methods or how to throw on a wheel to get you started and provide you with some guidance along the way. The Pottery Studio provides all the tools necessary to get you started in either hand-building or wheel-throwing.
Once the work is complete it will be sent off to be fired in the kiln, which can take up to 14 days.
Although all care is taken to ensure the work gets to the kiln and back to you in one piece, The Pottery Studio takes no responsibility for any breakages during the drying and firing process or any explosions in the kiln. Pottery is an art and can take years of practice to master, so do not be disheartened if your work does not make it as even the most experienced potters have work come out of the kiln in a way they didn’t imagine.
The second part of the process is glazing (painting and sealing your work). Once the work is back from the first firing, you will book a glazing class and come back to glaze your work. Once this class is complete the work is sent off to the kiln again. At this stage, the work is generally more resilient to damages however they can still occur and The Pottery Studio takes no liability for broken work.
Please note we have very few breakages and they are rare as we work with you throughout the entirety of classes, to ensure you have built the piece to a standard that will survive in the kiln. Adventurous students (or those who like to break the rules and disregard instruction) generally find their work breaks as they take on a piece out of their experience. Our teachers will usher you to change your idea if they believe it has too much risk of breaking, but it is ultimately your choice to follow their advice or not.
We do not refund any breakages, but we do offer replacements from a selection of spare work we have at the studio. Due to the nature of making, we cannot offer exact replicas of your work.
Once you have collected your work, The Pottery Studio holds no liability for damages to your pieces that occur outside of the studio. Please note that we have limited storage space and will only hold work for 2 months on the shelves before we store it in a box and it becomes a donation to others to glaze or donated to daycares for art projects.
If you know you will not be coming back to Glaze within 2 months, you can collect your work unglazed and bring it back when you have time. You can also contact us to put it aside for you, but we will only hold work for an extra 14 days past the 2 month cut off.