Get your hands dirty creating with clay at these local pottery studios

Creating art to give as gifts to friends and family may sound like something from a children’s art class, but at several local studios and businesses, making things is great for all ages.

Hannah Carleton knows that firsthand. She took ceramics while in college “just as a fun class and stress relief — and fell in love with it.”

Now, the 28-year-old is the proud owner of PYOP Studio in Northborough. The pottery store offers bisquewear to paint: everything from mugs and platters to ornaments, fairy houses and animals of all shapes and sizes. Plus, there are lots of gnomes and gnome houses, which her mom likes, she said.

Bisqueware is clay that has been fired at least once — and is ready for paint or glaze before going into the kiln again for a final firing. PYOP offers painting and clay classes, or customers can come in, paint an object and pick it up a week later.

Carleton was able to weather the pandemic with the help of grants and by offering contactless pickup of take-home painting kits, which were a huge hit — first over the phone, then on her new website.

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“A lot of times when people walk through the door just to check it out, they ask me if they have to have any talent or capability to be able to do this,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

Also, “People like to be able to create something that they can use.”

Getting your hands dirty

"My whole business model has shifted from little kids and after-school art to adults wanting to paint and hand-build and make things out of clay,” said Kathy Wotton, owner of Artworks Studio in Bellingham, which offers ceramics classes for ages 10 and up.

Artworks Studio is operating from ConnectEd & Inspired, also an art space. Both businesses are soon moving to new locations in town.

Wotton said she suspected a few factors were at play in more people wanting to get their hands dirty and make things; the popularity of "The Great Pottery Throw Down," which is kind of like the great British bake-off but where contestants get covered in clay rather than flour; companies offering wheels that cost less than a laptop; and people coming out of the pandemic wanting to start new hobbies.

Plus, video content on YouTube and TikTok has brought ceramics to new audiences.

But tutorials on YouTube aren’t necessarily all you need. Manipulating clay on the wheel is all about muscles, tension and breathing — and stress doesn’t help, Wotton explained.

“I’ve had kids come into the studio and say, ‘I’ve watched YouTube so I might not need your help,’” she said. “It’s built a little bit of confidence in them — and those are the people that go down the fastest.”

How to throw a pot

Wotton said it can be challenging for people to pursue a hobby in which they’re going to fail — a lot, at least initially. She compared throwing a pot to a dance, with a set movement for each step of manipulating the clay: centering the ball, forming it into a flat disc, finding the middle of that disc to press a hole into it to form the pot, opening it up and then pulling clay up from the bottom to form the walls.

“This is one of those things like yoga. You’re here to practice,” she said. “If you’re looking for a perfect set of bowls, stop at Target on the way home and grab some, because this takes time.”

When students take pottery classes in college, they’ll often be assigned skills practice like throwing a dozen cylinders and then trashing them. But for new potters, having nothing to show from their hours of work can be disheartening, so Wotton will guide them to make sure they have at least one thing at the end of class to show for their progress. The initial wobbly bowls might not make great gifts, but even a crooked vessel can hold water, jewelry or a plant.

Handbuilding is also an option. Handbuilding, another ceramics technique, is the process of cutting and pressing together slabs and shapes to create objects. It’s extremely freeform compared to wheel throwing in part because the clay isn’t moving while one is working on it.

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Wotton said it can be difficult for new students to let go of the perfectionist part of themselves: if you keep pulling and pulling at a piece, messing with the walls and the profile of a pot on the wheel, the entire thing may collapse.

“We are all about the wonky pots,” she said, because those initial wobbly bowls can still hold paper clips, jewelry or even a plant. “Every mistake gets you closer to doing it well … they have to do every single thing wrong first.”

(Mental) health

Carleton said paint-your-own-pottery was popular during the pandemic and beyond because it was something anyone could participate in. For the artistically inclined, they could paint intricate patterns, and for the less creative, multiple coats of glaze will melt in unique ways in the kiln, giving each piece a personal touch.

And there are plenty of tips and tricks. Pencil, for example, burns off during firing, so painting something complex could be as simple as just coloring inside the lines.

Painting pottery “was getting people not necessarily out of the house but out of just being home, alone and isolated, and having nothing to do — and I think people realize how much things like that affect their mental health,” Carleton said. “Having activities that they could do during that time was helpful for people and I think post-pandemic, people really like trying to keep that as part of their lives.”

Wotton said her students also experience a sense of timelessness in class. They’re often surprised that two hours has gone by while working with clay.

“My students often say to me ‘I haven’t thought about my job in the last two hours,” Wotton said. “It gives the mind a time to rest, even though it’s focusing on something else."

She said she hopes there can be more creative spaces for people of all ages in Bellingham and beyond.

“I think being able to provide a space for people to have an opportunity to just relax and do something fun can contribute to good health,” Carleton added. “It’s great for everybody.”

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Find pottery, ceramics classes in MetroWest, Milford, Framingham