A pottery not a hospital

I teach a one day throwing class at Pinecroft. Class starts at 9:30 when the students learn to center and make a cylinder by 11:30. Lunch at the Green Frog till 12:30. A tour of the pottery and then bowls until 2:10, clean up and done, adios at 2:30. I want all students to have made a cup and a bowl. I don't make for them. They get what they make. I can't tell you how many students I have had that previously took 6 and 8 week 3 hour classes at other clay centers. Most of them can't even center the clay. By 10:30 they are saying these are better than I made at the end of my course. So lately I've been enquiring Wtf is going on out there. Here are a couple of things. They get a ration of clay that they pay for over and above their tuiton. Therefore clay is precious!!!! At Pinecroft they make a mistake cut it off and I put it thru the pugmill. Clay is unlimited and not precious. They tell me in a three hour class they spend the last hour cleaning, mopping and making sure there isn't a speck of clay anywhere. They also may get a different teacher showing different techniques. Such fun???? Pineroft has been a working studio pottery since 1947. Tons and tons and tons of clay have been moved within those walls. I have visited working potteries in 7 countries around the world. They are potteries not hospitals. Here is another big difference. They get a teacher that has worked in clay for over 6 decades, taught in Canada's best craft and design school- Sheridan College School of Craft and Design, taught well over a hundred workshops worldwide and yes an Mfa from Utah State University (considered by me the best program in the world). Of course I am biased. Also ace up my sleeve is I was nominated and received the RCA designation for my contribution to Art in Canada. Pinecroft is a diamond in the rough. The glaze kitchen has samples of materials no longer available. Samples of uranium glazed plates my Uncle Jimmie formulated in 1939. We have fun and they make some decent pots in one day. When my cousin Brenda teaches between the two of us we offer over a century of moving clay. The advice I gave my kids when they went off to University- pick the teacher not the course. A good teacher makes all the difference in the world.

Pots after one day.

Kiss a frog for the perfect fairy tale wedding or to make better pots. I'm a believer! It has been working.

Some of my Uncle Jimmies glaze tests in 1939 while working at Medicine Hat Potteries the largest stoneware producing company in Canada. Nothing looks better than Grannies purple potatoes cooked in olive oil, sprinkled with Utah mined real salt. Purple and orange- yummy!