Membership Q&A Open House Reminder! Plus, 2 Spots Left In Beginner Wheel Class Starting Tuesday, June 25
Staunton Clayground is getting ready to launch its Studio Membership Program next month! A special Open House is happening this Saturday, June 22, from 11–3, for the express purpose of answering all of your questions about memberships, classes and anything else you might want to know.
See the new member space, enjoy refreshments and door prizes for 3 lucky winners, who will get a discount on their first 3 months of membership!
Also, last call for sign-ups for our next All-Level Beginner Wheel Class, starting Tuesday, June 25. 2 spots left!
Things have definitely been heating up at the studio, and not just because of our kilns 😁
We have been hard at work not just setting up a ton of great classes (taking place inside where it is nice and cool 😉) but also getting ready to launch our Studio Membership Program next month! And July is just around the corner, so we wanted to remind you about our special Open House happening this Saturday, June 22, from 11–3, for the express purpose of answering all of your questions about memberships, classes and anything else you might want to know about what we’re up to!
We are very excited to show you our new member space and tell you all about what we’re planning. Not only that, but there will be refreshments and door prizes for 3 lucky winners, who will get a discount on their first 3 months as members! Come down and see us! Tell your friends! RSVP on Facebook, if you like. We can’t wait to see you there.
Also, our wheel classes have been filling up fast, but there are still 2 spots left in the Pottery Wheel For All-Level Beginners class starting this coming Tuesday, June 25! It will run Tuesday evenings, 5:30–8:30 pm for 5 weeks.
Come down and clay!
New Sunday Pottery Wheel All-Level Beginner Class Announced And Last Call For "Bowls & Underglaze" Workshop, Starting Tuesday!
A new Sunday wheel class for all-level beginners, last call for sign-ups for mid-level beginner wheel workshop on bowls and underglaze decoration, and don’t forget to mark your calendars for our Member Q&A Open House on Saturday, June 22! There’s so much going on at the Staunton Clayground!
We hope that you are all having a wonderful weekend and staying cool!
We’re writing with some exciting news! We have just posted a new Pottery Wheel For All-Level Beginners class, set to run on Sunday afternoons, 2:30–5:00 pm, June 30–July 28 and August 11, 2024.
Why have we added another one? Well, we have had a lot of requests for Sunday classes, plus the other all-level beginners wheel class we posted just a couple of weeks ago is already nearly sold out! If you were interested in that one, which will be running on Tuesdays evenings, 5:30–8:30 pm, June 25–July 23, now is the time to grab one of the few spots remaining!
If you already have some experience at the wheel and are itching to get your hands back in the clay a little sooner, there’s still a little time to book a spot in Nicole Eyerman Hill’s pottery wheel and surface decoration workshop starting this Tuesday, Bowls & Underglaze.
It will consist of three 3-hour sessions, running from 5:30–8:30 pm on Tuesday, June 18, Friday, June 21 and Friday, June 28, 2024. Sign-ups close after Sunday, June 16, so if you’re interested, now’s the time!
Last but not least, don’t forget about our Open House on Saturday, June 22, from 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.!
This event will be specifically dedicated to answering your questions about our Membership Program, which is set to start up very soon! Look for the Facebook Event page, going up this week.
Keep watching this space for news about this and more great summer workshops!
Wishing you a great weekend and, to all of you Dads out there, Happy Father’s Day! 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
New Pottery Wheel All-Level Beginner Class Added! June 25–July 23, Sign-Ups Now Open!
Sign-ups are now open for a brand new 15-hour Pottery Wheel For All-Level Beginners class, starting on June 25! It will consist of five three-hour sessions, running on Tuesday evenings from 5:30 to 8:30, June 25 through July 23. Space is limited, so grab your spot now!
It certainly has been an eventful few weeks since our first Open House back in April. Our very first Intro to Clay classwrapped up last week and our first two handbuilding workshops are in full swing, with students’ pieces from both just about ready for the final step, glazing!
“What about pottery wheel classes?” you might ask. Well, the first two Pottery Wheel For All-Level Beginner classes we posted both sold out well before their start dates, so we are very happy to announce that we have just managed to schedule an additional one!
cue drum roll
Sign-ups are now open for a brand new 15-hour Pottery Wheel For All-Level Beginners class, starting on June 25! It will consist of five three-hour sessions, running on Tuesday evenings from 5:30 to 8:30, June 25 through July 23, and be taught by Nicole Eyerman Hill. You may know her work from seeing her booth at Art in the Park or from seeing her page on instagram.
We are doing our best to understand what it is that everyone in our community is most interested in and plan our future classes accordingly! If there is something specific you or a friend is interesting in learning and it is not already among the Staunton Clayground class and workshop offerings, drop us a line and we’ll see what we can do. We want to know what it is that you want to learn!
Meanwhile, if you see a past class that makes you wish you’d been there, no worries. We plan to offer repeats of our popular classes in the future.
In other news, a lot of you have been asking about when we are going to open up our studio for memberships. Well, we are working now on hammering out the final details of our membership program! We are planning a special open house geared specifically towards answering all of your membership questions. We’ll have the date nailed down in the next few days, so keep watching this space!
Meanwhile, we wish you all a marvelous weekend!
Last Evening Handbuilding In “Intro To Clay”
Students and teachers had fun working on slab-built boxes and putting some final touches on previous coil and hand-sculpting projects, wrapping up the first half of this spring's "Intro to Clay" class. This concludes are whistle-stop tour of some basic handbuilding techniques. Starting next week, it’s on to the pottery wheel!
Yesterday evening we all (teachers included!) had a great time putting some finishing touches on all of the handbuilding projects we’ve been working on since our “Intro to Clay” class started two weeks ago. Here are some highlights from last night’s class! Rest up, kids, because next week we move on and take a spin on the pottery wheel. Can’t wait!
Just a few highlights from our class, where we worked on wrapping up some handbuilding projects, including plates made using hand-rolled slabs, textured boxes cut from slabs we learned to make on the slab rolling machine, some coil-built bowls and hand-sculpted animals. Thank you to @octobergracemedia for the amazing photos!
Stay tuned next week for pics from our first wheel-throwing class on Monday! And if you missed the earlier post about this “Intro to Clay” class, you can check it out here.
Plenty Of Fun In Our First "Introduction To Clay" Class… And More Workshops Starting Soon!
The Staunton Clayground “Introduction to Clay” class delves into using the pinch-pot technique to make animal figurines in their third session. Everybody’s been having fun learning basic handbuilding skills, and they’ll be starting on wheel-throwing next week. More workshops and classes are starting in May, with spots still available. It’s claytime!
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!
Open House Tomorrow From 12–5 PM! Plus, we still have spots available in our Intro to Clay class, starting Monday evening!
Come celebrate the opening of the Staunton Clayground pottery studio at our Open House! There will be a chance to win a door prize of one pottery class or workshop, tour our studio, see live wheel throwing demos, enjoy refreshments by Pizzeria Luca and Magdalena Bake, and, in honor of Earth Day, paint your own ceramic garden stake. Plus, there are still spots available in our first class, starting Monday! Let’s clay!
That’s right! It is finally time for our Open House! We are officially opening our doors for business, and we can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on with you!
Come celebrate the opening of the Staunton Clayground pottery studio at our Open House tomorrow from 12–5 pm! There will be a chance to win a door prize of one pottery class or workshop, tour our studio, see live wheel throwing demos, enjoy refreshments by Pizzeria Luca and Magdalena Bake, and, in honor of Earth Day, paint your own ceramic garden stake (we’ll fire it for you for pick-up later).
Still wondering how to find us? We are located in “The Cellar” at 123 W. Frederick St., with our main entrance around the back of the post office building. Free parking spots for “The Cellar” are available in the lot at 116 N. Lewis St. There is also plenty of on-street parking nearby, and we are just a few blocks’ walk from the public parking lots (also free on weekends) at the Wharf and on South New St.
In other exciting news, our first class, “Introduction to Clay,” co-taught by Cary and Jennifer, is kicking off next week, on Monday evening, to be precise!
An Introduction to Clay: Basics of Wheel and Handbuilding will consist of nine 2-hour sessions (18 hours total): Monday and Thursday evenings, from 6:00 – 8:00, (April 22, 2024 – May 20, 2024)
“Come and learn the basics of working with clay! If you are an absolute beginner or haven’t been back to the pottery studio since that class you took in school, then this course is for you. The goal of this pottery class is to learn the basics of functional pottery and have several pieces to show for it by the time the course has concluded. Over nine 2-hour sessions, students will experiment with hand building using slabs and molds and with using the wheel to make basic pottery shapes such as small cups, bowls and mugs.
Everything we make will be functional and oven, microwave, dishwasher and food safe!”
We’ve got a whole bunch of other classes lined up, too, with more coming soon. Please don’t forget to visit our online shop or our Classes, Courses & Workshops page and check them out!
We hope you can come and see us! We are more than ready to finally invite you to “Come and clay!”
See you soon!
Our Class Line-Up Is Here And Our Online Shop Is Open For Business!
Here at the Staunton Clayground we are unveiling our initial line-up of classes for Spring–Summer 2024 and our online store is open for business, so you can claim your spot. We can’t wait for you to come and clay!
Today is a very big day for us, because we are finally unveiling our initial class line-up and opening our online store for business! Read on to learn more!
More in-depth info about all of these classes and workshops described below is available on the Classes, Courses & Workshops page of our website, and our shop is now open, so head on over if you are ready to claim your spot! You can also see how all of these things fit together on our brand new Upcoming Classes & Events Calendar page.
We’ll be kicking things off in April with An Introduction to Clay, where participants will learn the basics of both handbuilding and wheel throwing, the two main forms of pottery creation. This evening class, starting the Monday after our Open House (taking place on April 20!), will consist of nine two-hour sessions and it will be co-taught by Cary and Jennifer.
Next up, in May, we will have a six-hour handbuilding workshop, Slab Geometric Vases, taking place over the course of three days. For this one we are very pleased to introduce a new addition to our team, fantastic local potter Nicole Eyerman Hill (you might know her from her booth at Staunton’s Art in the Park, 2023 edition). You can learn more about her on our Staff & Instructors page!
This will be joined on our calendar by a twelve-hour handbuilding workshopstarting the week after Memorial Day, this one entitled Sculptural Slab Creations. Our very own Cary Dahl will be leading this exploration of the basics and possibilities of slab building to help you develop and complete projects that can be either functional or ornamental. Your imagination is the limit!
Nicole returns in early June to teach an eighteen-hour Intermediate Wheel Throwing class on Wednesday evenings over the course of six weeks.
Not feeling quite ready for intermediate wheel? Our Studio Manager, Jennifer, will be leading eighteen-hour Pottery Wheel for All-Level Beginners courses twice over the course of the summer.
Remember, you can read more about all of these on the Classes, Courses & Workshops page of our website!
(All of these classes and workshops are designed for adults (age 14+). We are definitely planning to include workshops for younger people and children going forward, but including those in our initial line-up has proven to be a bit more than we could organize to start. Bear with us! Over the coming months we plan to expand our offerings to include plenty of things for kids as well.)
Meanwhile, we are hoping to add more workshops and classes before the summer is out, so keep watching this space!
Let’s clay!! 😀
The Staunton Clayground Is Coming!
Whether you are just hearing about the Staunton Clayground, or you have been patiently anticipating our opening, I'm excited to tell you that we are moving into our space! We are a membership-focused pottery studio in Downtown Staunton that offers tools, workspace, equipment (12 wheels, 3 kilns and 2 slab rollers!) glazes and kiln-firing for members, as well as an array of classes and workshops for beginners through seasoned potters. Subscribe to our newsletter and stay tuned for announcements about an open house and first introductory class!
Building Community Through Clay
Whether you are just hearing about the Staunton Clayground, or you have been patiently anticipating our opening, I'm excited to tell you that we are moving into our space and working hard to create an environment that allows you to be creative and productive, whether on your own or in classes. Stay tuned for announcements about an open house and first introductory class!
So, what are we? We are a membership-focused pottery studio in Downtown Staunton that offers tools, workspace, equipment, glazes and kiln-firing for members, as well as an array of classes and workshops for beginners through seasoned potters. We have 12 pottery wheels, 3 kilns, and 2 slab rollers, so there is plenty of room to spread out and get creative.
So, where are we? We are located under the Frederick Street Post Office in a space called the Cellar. Among other businesses, we will be sharing the floor with a sewing school, so members will be surrounded by creative energy!
So, why are we? Officially, we founded Staunton Clayground in order to “Celebrate Clay, Creativity, and Community”. But honestly, if you are like me, you are tired of creating art in solitude; we all had enough solitude during the pandemic. So I see the Clayground as being a place to work and play side by side with other people having fun, sharing ideas, and growing together. As we say on our homepage, “building bonds one joyful creation at a time”.
We believe in…
the power of art to improve the world, one life at a time, the joy of creating to foster personal expression, self-exploration, personal growth and self-confidence.
We believe in…
forging relationships and collaborations with local non-profit organizations to help them fulfill their missions.
If you are interested in taking classes, becoming a Studio Member, or simply want to stay informed, please sign up for our newsletter (if you haven’t already) and come and clay with us!
Clay covered hands, “Building community through clay!”
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