Pottery Wheel
Throwing Lessons
Taking a wheel throwing lesson with Steve Gordon is more than just about pottery. Everyone leaves his lessons knowing a little bit more about life, love and having fun!
NOTE: If this is short notice (day you’d love a lesson/experience)
or it looks like we’re already booked, please call us at 406-260-1559 to see if there’s still room for you!
Come take a Pottery Lesson at Art Escape in Beautiful Whitefish, Montana
If you’ve never used a pottery wheel before, this just may be for you. During your 3-hour beginning pottery lesson, Steve patiently takes you through the basics of wheel throwing from beginning to end. Along the way, you will learn distinctions that may very well change your life… and don’t be surprised if you bust out laughing at least once during your lesson.
Note: Our lessons can host up to four (4) people at a time. This is a really fun ‘date’ activity by the way!
Learning to throw clay on the wheel is a huge first experience for most people who have a desire to see if they have the ‘ceramic gene.’ It’s something in your blood. You see someone throw a bowl on the wheel or have a friend who hand-builds funny birds for a living and you just can’t shake the desire to see what YOU can create with your own hands with clay.
You’ll start your ‘pottery experience’ by learning the proper steps required to throw any type of pot on a pottery wheel. You’ll learn the following:
- Exploring clay: what makes it do the things it does.
- Wedging: what it is, why it’s necessary and when it’s not.
- How the pottery wheel works.
- How to prepare your clay for the wheel.
- How to prepare your body for working on the wheel, including proper posture.
- How to center clay on the wheel.
- Coning: what the heck is it and why is it necessary.
- Compression: what happens if you don’t.
- Opening the center of the piece.
- Raising the sides while creating the walls of your piece.
- Shaping your piece.
- Finishing touches.
- Maintaining and restoring integrity to your thrown piece.
- Removing your piece from the wheel and preparing it for the next steps.
When you finish your pottery lesson, you will walk away with the experience and have a greater understanding of what it takes to be a potter! Since it takes several weeks to create a finished piece, you won’t walk away from the lesson except for an amazing experience. Think of it kinda like a voice lesson or a kayaking trip!
NOTE: If this is short notice (day you’d love a lesson/experience) or it looks like we’re already booked, please call us at 406-260-1559 to see if there’s still room for you!
And if you would like to schedule a private lesson or book a different time for your group, please call us at 406-260-1559! We’ll find the perfect spot for you!
Pottery Lessons for Couples
We’ll make it fun for you and your Sweetie-Num-Nums…
Every master was once a disaster…
Come be a disaster! LOL
We provide a perfectly judgement free zone where you can feel free to be as much of a disaster as your little heart desires.
Make a mess! Do it again, We have zillions of towels and sponges and when the day is done, a fully stocked laundry room to wash all your clothes.
Come work on one of Steve's pieces!
We’re all learning all the time:
Here’s Haily learning how to detail one of Steve’s big wheel thrown pots. .
The stand-up pottery wheel is perfect for students who don’t want to sit all day…
This couple had a blast creating together. The studio was filled with laughter that day.
From our teachers to you…
Passing along life lessons that we’ve learned from our teachers.
It’s not like we’re some enlightened gurus, bestowing our gifts upon you, no. But, we’ve both been blessed with amazing teachers during our many years of personal development.
We love nothing more than to pass along some of the wisdom and distinctions we’ve learned.
You will not just learn ceramics. You just may learn something that will be a complete surprise to you and change you to your very core.
Lighten Up!
Take a Seat or Stand Up… Why do we have stand-up and sit-down pottery wheels?
If you’re like most people, the only way you’ve ever seen anyone throw pottery on a wheel is in the sitting down position.
In reality, people lose themself in the mud in every conceivable position.
There’s no rules. Standing up works best for both of us.
Learning to center clay on the pottery wheel.
Learning to center clay on the wheel is a lot like learning to be centered in life.
Sometimes when you’re new, just when you think you’ve got everything under control, the whole piece slides right off the wheel. The best piece you’ve ever made can go South in an instant while a “mistake” turns out to be the best thing that could have ever happened.
But don’t worry, no clay goes to waste around here.
We’ll recycle it and use it again.
Focus - Focus - Focus
If you’re like a lot of beginners, you’ll become mesmerized by the wheel.
The question is, what will you focus on? Whatever you stay focused on, you’ll create.
Vacation plus pottery equals fun
So are you ready to play in the mud like a kid?
When you’re here, you’re on vacation. Let’s not take ourselves too seriously.
Learning to throw pottery on the wheel can be tons of fun, but first, you must be willing to leave your expectations along with your out-dated past outside.
A Trip to India: This was a peak experience for me, and I know it was for the kids as well.
One day just for fun, I posted on Facebook that I’d like to travel. I asked if anyone with a pottery studio outside of America would like to have me visit and maybe do a few classes.
The response I got from a studio in India looked interesting so I jumped on it.
A few weeks later, there I was, up to my elbows in mud, in the middle of India.
