A potter’s hands closing the rim of a dark clay pot on a spinning wheel.

Every pot is made twice. Once wet, once in the fire.

A two-person workshop on the ground floor of a former dairy, throwing tableware in three clay bodies and firing it in one gas kiln.

The shop

What came out of the last firing is on the shelf by the door and on this page. When it is gone it is gone until the kiln is full again, which is roughly every three weeks.

How ordering works
A row of small glazed pots standing in a line of afternoon sun.

Small beaker, celadon

€ 18

−1+
Add to basket
Pale glazed bowls and a jug arranged on a wooden board.

Breakfast bowl, oatmeal

€ 26

−1+
Add to basket
The wheel

Classes at the
long table

Six places, six wheels, one teacher. Everything you make in a course is fired and glazed here and waits for you on the shelf; nothing is thrown away without asking.

What a course includes
A woman centring clay on a pottery wheel in warm light.

First six evenings · Tuesdays, from 13 January

€ 285, clay and firing included

Centring, opening, pulling a wall. Most people leave the first evening with nothing and the third with four cylinders, two of which are worth keeping.

Two pairs of hands working the same lump of clay on a wheel.

Second six · Thursdays, from 15 January

€ 285, clay and firing included

Bowls, lids and handles, and the part nobody enjoys: trimming a foot without putting a hole through the bottom. You need the first course or an equivalent.

A quiet studio with long work tables and finished pieces on shelves.

Open table · Sundays, 10:00 to 14:00

€ 22 per morning, clay by the kilo

No teaching, no programme. A wheel, a table and somebody in the room who can answer a question. For people who have done a course and have nowhere to throw.

Rows of unglazed cups drying on a workshop shelf. Cups standing on a kiln shelf with the fire glowing orange beneath them.

Three clay bodies, and two of them come out of the same pit.

Trimming tools and offcuts lying on a dusty wooden board. Hands lifting a wide terracotta bowl off the wheel head. A stack of plain white bowls on a wooden table. A wheel head with tools and a bowl of slip beside it. Dark unfired cups standing in rows, seen from the side.
What is in the clay

Before you buy

Nothing matches exactly
Every piece is thrown by hand, so a set of six beakers varies by up to half a centimetre in height and a little in colour. If you need six identical objects, buy them somewhere else and we will not be offended.
Dishwasher and oven
All glazes here are lead-free and stoneware-fired to 1260°C, so everything is dishwasher safe and food safe. None of it is flameproof and none of it likes a microwave, because two of the glazes carry iron.
How long it takes
Stock pieces go out in three working days. Anything made to order waits for a full kiln: allow five weeks, and longer in July, when the kiln is off.
Breakages
If it arrives broken, send one photograph and we will replace it or refund it, your choice. The packing is paper and cardboard, which means it is heavier and it works.
Courses
Cancel up to two weeks before the first evening and you get everything back; after that, half, unless somebody takes your place. Miss an evening and you can join the same evening in the next round.
What we keep
Name, address and order, for seven years, because the tax office says so. Course lists are on paper in the studio and binned at the end of the round. There is no tracking on this page.
Small plates in several glazes laid out on a pink surface, seen from above. Stacked plates and bowls in green and yellow glazes on a table. Bowls and cups standing on a long shelf in a dim workshop.

Scherf

Ground floor of the old dairy
Open Saturdays, 11:00 to 16:00

ShopClassesThe clay Before you buyContact

One message when the kiln comes out, so you know what is on the shelf. Eight or nine a year.

Scherf is a fictional example. The workshop, the prices and the course dates do not exist. Photographs are stock images and do not show this studio.