Jewelry Making And Creature Crafting: Two Exciting New Workshops Coming In April! Plus Collaborations With Staunton Parks & Recreation!

Hello, dear Friends of the Staunton Clayground!

We are so excited to announce that in April we will be offering two workshops we have never offered before! Plus, we are kicking off springtime with two family-friendly co-workshops hosted by Staunton Parks & Rec! Read on to learn more!

Where to start? Come join Mary Tuttle for a fun and magical journey through jewelry land! No prior clay experience necessary!

What better way to find that perfect piece of jewelry than to make it yourself?

In Jewelry Making With Handmade Stoneware Beads! Tuesday evenings: April 22 & 29 from 6:00–7:30 pm and May 6 from 6:00–8:00 pm (5 hours total), you’ll learn to make your own stoneware beads out of clay, as well as how to glaze them. You will also learn basic wire wrapping to put them together, in order to make at least one pair of earrings and one necklace (just in time for Mother’s Day). We will provide all tools and materials. You just bring your creativity and any photographs after which you would like to style your jewelry.

Jewelry making will not be limited to women’s jewelry!

Next up, come join creature-creator extraordinaire, Abby Kiracofe, for a one-day adventure in handbuilding!

Who doesn’t need a friendly clay companion or two?

In Creature Crafting – A One-Day Handbuilding Workshop In April 2025, over the course of three very fun hours, you will learn how to make two different types of clay creatures, using the pinch-pot method and by sculpting. Choose a glaze color from several options and pick up your glazed and fired creatures 1-2 weeks later. Absolute beginners welcome are welcome, and you can choose from 1 of 3 workshop times: Sunday afternoon, April 13, 3:00–6:00 pm, Wednesday morning, April 16, 9:30 am–12:30 pm. Thursday evening, April 17, 5:30–8:30 pm.

We are also very happy to be kicking off a series of collaborations with Staunton Parks & Recreation! These will be taking place at the Gypsy Hill Park Garden Center and are family-friendly! Come with a friend or bring your kids along! These workshops are for people age 12+, but ages 6+ are welcome if working side-by-side with an adult participant.

The first, taking place on March 18 from 4:30–6:30, is Paint Your Own Plant Pot! What better way to welcome spring than by painting a brand new plant pot, handmade for you by us here at Staunton Clayground? Click the link above to visit the Parks & Rec website and register by March 12 to claim your spot!

Next up, on April 15 from 4:30–6:00, is Spring Window Accents! Come paint three colorful seasonal window accents, handmade for you at Staunton Clayground. Choose from a variety of shapes including flowers, bunnies and Easter eggs. We will provide all materials, including ribbons, so that you can take your handmade window accent home to hang the same day. Register by April 8 on the Parks & Rec website by April 8 by clicking the link above! Plus, don’t forget to check out all of the other wonderful activities they offer!

There will be even more fun coming in May and June, so keep watching this space for news 😃

Wishing you much happy claytime!

A One-Day Polymer Clay Workshop, Plus An Additional Handbuilding Class, Back By Popular Demand!

Staunton is gearing up for a magical weekend, and we are kicking off a fabulous fall! We are adding more handbuilding and branching out into polymer clay, so hold on to your hats and keep on reading!

A welcoming polymer clay “Desk Buddy!” by local artist and our newest instructor, Lainie Mabbitt

Our first-ever one-day workshop, An Introduction to Polymer Clay – Make an Inspirational Desk Friend, is scheduled for Saturday, October 26, 9:00 a.m.–12:00 noon.

Come join local artist Lainie Mabbitt of Second Stories Art, our newest instructor, for tea and cookies and a chance to make a one-of-a-kind gift, a “Desk Buddy” to brighten your desk or the desk of someone you love!

In this 3-hour workshop for adults aged 14 and up, we’ll talk about the benefits and fun of using polymer clay.

You will practice techniques to create realistic faces and use your new skill to craft a character for your desk who holds an inspirational sign of your choosing.

Back in the realm of longer-form workshops, we had originally scheduled two handbuilding classes this autumn, but they both sold out before August was even over! So we have decided to add one more session of our super-popular five-week Introduction to Handbuilding. This one is scheduled to run on Monday evenings, October 14–Nov. 18, 6:00–8:30 pm (with a break the week of Nov. 11, Veterans' Day).

So much to explore! So much fun playing!

Join our very own founder, Cary Dahl, to explore some of the essential techniques of handbuilding, making several unique functional pieces to take home (or give as gifts this holiday season). You will build confidence working with both soft and leather-hard clay, and explore a variety of surface texturing techniques. Projects will include a set of small plates, a birdbath with bird sculpture, an angular vase, and a mug (all food, oven, microwave and dishwasher safe).

Is that all? Not by a long shot! We are putting the final touches on a couple more holiday-themed workshops that will be taking place in late November and early December, so keep watching this space!

Meanwhile, if you are in the Queen City, have a magical (and mischievous) weekend!

Three New Handbuilding Workshops in July and August! Two With Local Artist Janly Jaggard and One In Partnership With The Art Hive!

We have had quite a few queries about whether we were going to have new handbuilding workshops this summer, and we are very excited to officially announce three! Two, a Sculptural Coiled Forms workshop starting July 16 and an intensive Clay Slabbing and Hollow Forms workshop beginning August 9 (both geared towards adults age 14+), are taught by special guest artist and instructor Janly Jaggard. The third, for young people ages 10–18, entitled coil pot planters | 3 day clay workshop, is a “co-production” by Staunton Clayground, the Art Hive and Mottainai! Click the links or read on to learn more about all of them!

Let’s start with that last one, “coil pot planters | 3 day clay workshop,” because it is starting first (Wednesdays, July 10, 17, 24, from 1:00–4:00 pm)! Designed for young people ages 10–18, it is set to take place at Staunton Claygroundand the Art Hive.

During the first day, taking place in our clay studio, “Get inspired by indigenous potters Maria Martinez & Louise Goodman as you dive into the art of coil pot construction. We'll share stories and techniques while you build your very own coil pot, ready to house your favorite plant.” The last two sessions will be hosted at the Art Hive. During these two, students will first decorate their pots using underglaze painting then, to wrap up the workshop, “Join Jacque from Mottainai for a fun session on planting and caring for your new green buds in your beautiful vessel!

Don't miss out on this hands-on experience where art meets nature!” Tickets available here!

Our next two new handbuilding workshops, both for adults, are taught entirely at the Staunton Clayground by a special guest instructor, local artist Janly Jaggard. Here’s a link to her bio on our website, and you can check out her art on her own website here!

The first will be a Sculptural Coiled Forms workshop, taking place over five 3-hour sessions, 1:00–4:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays, July 16, 19, 23, 26 and August 6, 2024.

“It will deal with several aspects of working with earthenware clay and has both the beginner and the experienced clay worker in mind. The focus will be on material and on the design skills that will build aesthetic discernment about handbuilding skills as well as shape, form, surface and texture. Students will begin with drawings or other found references, like images that are of plant and other natural forms such as seaweed, trees, sand dunes, clouds, leaves, legs, etc., which will be the starting point for shape and form and then detail of texture and color.”

The second is an intensive workshop, Clay Slabbing and Hollow Forms, consisting of two 6-hour sessions + glazing day: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. on Sat. and Sun., August 9 and 10, and glazing Fri., Aug. 30, 10:00 a.m. until finished (may take less time than the previous two sessions).

As Janly Jaggard writes, “Slabbing is a technique that uses leather-hard clay construction and recalls real-world angular shapes. These shapes are the inspiration for the project students will create in this workshop. Ideas will come from references to buildings, man-made forms such as machines, and manufactured forms. We will make plans and drawings on paper then work on rolling out clay. Exploration of methods of joining slabs and developing surface decoration will be next, as the clay gets to leather hard and ready for building. Decoration and embellishment includes adding clay, piercing, carving, and using color.”

If, on the other hand, it is wheel classes you’re looking for, more experienced wheel throwers ages 14+ can join Nicole Eyerman Hill for her 3-day Wheel Throwing & Surface Decoration workshop, Vases & Carving, in which students will focus on throwing small vases with slightly thicker than usual walls, making it possible to carve out faceting or other designs once the vessels are leather-hard.

This is an interesting way to add interest to the surface of any piece, and can be done either on plain clay as a way to show off the effects of particular glazes or in combination with colored slip or underglaze decoration applied before clear-glazing.

We hope to add at least one more beginner wheel class over the summer, so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, thank you to everyone who has applied for our Studio Membership program! You can expect to hear from us very soon 😃 We’re working through those applications right now!

See you soon at the Staunton Clayground!

Plenty Of Fun In Our First "Introduction To Clay" Class… And More Workshops Starting Soon!

Hello everybody! It’s been a busy last several days at the Staunton Clayground since our Open House.

Feathered friend in the works (photo by @octobergracemedia)

On Monday, just two days our Open House, we kicked off our very first “Introduction to Clay” class. This is a 5-week course covering basic pottery techniques, and the first half of it, taught by Cary, covers basic handbuilding techniques.

A bird begins to take form (photo by @octobergracemedia)

So far, we’ve had an intro to hand-rolled slab building and coil building, as well as learning the fundamentals of using a slab rolling machine, but yesterday evening, during the third class, everyone had a lot of fun getting into kid mode and using simple pinch-pot skills to make animal figurines.

Fancy about to take flight! (photo by @octobergracemedia)

The odd whale out!

We’ll be continuing work on these later this week, as well as moving along with our other projects. We’ll have more fun photos for you soon!

(photo by @octobergracemedia)

Meanwhile, if the idea of handbuilding tickles your fancy, we’ve got a couple of fun workshops starting in May, and still have a few spots available in each! Check them out on our Classes, Course & Workshops page.

Spots still available!

In addition to prepping to teach the second, wheel-throwing portion of the Introduction to Clay course, Jennifer has also been busily waxing and glazing everyone’s garden stakes, which will be fired very soon! As soon as we know when they’ll be out of the kiln, we’ll plan an “Open Door” day for you to come and pick them up (or just to come and visit and tour the studio, if you didn’t have a chance to make it to the Open House).

Stay tuned for news!