A studio at 1322 Northwest Boulevard provides creative space for pottery-enthusiasts who like to share their interest with like-minded artists.
“This is where we like to hang out,” Valley Mudders Pottery Group member Stephanie Sweet said last week. “We have a lot of fun here.”
The interior features pottery wheels, kilns, rollers, extruders and even an extensive library. Full members get the run of the place, door key included, for an annual fee. Others are content to pay drop-in fees for scheduled work times.
Valley Mudders is a non-profit organization that subsidizes its costs by selling members’ works on site. Saturday (10-4) is sale day, and the variety of pieces and styles make it a delight to browse through for just the right gift.
“This is a very collaborative group,” member Donna Lenardon said. “We have some very accomplished potters, and others who are just learning, and everyone has something to share.”
The genesis of Valley Mudders is PCSS, where a public pottery class was offered nearly two decades ago. Eventually, a core group moved to the Wynndel Hall, and the Wynndel Mudders was born. In 2012, another relocation took place, and the Valley Mudders Pottery Group became a volunteer-run non-profit organization.
Members relish sharing their skills and the group has worked with countless community groups, from school classes to the Therapeutic Activation Program for Seniors.
While the stereotypical image of a potter is someone sitting at a wheel spinning pots, a look at the displays of various members’ work shows that most of the output is hand-built.
“Sometimes we start with a theme,” member Janet Schofer said. “It doesn’t take long before people are working on their own variations.”
Guest instructors are brought in for workshops, too. But it is also common for members to sit a communal table and work on their own projects, asking for and receiving advice, or just chatting as they work the clay.
While the group includes accomplished wheel potters, others prefer to work free-form, sculpting the clay with tools and shaping it with mud-caked hands. Some projects started with rolling the clay into flat, malleable sheets.
“Glazing is the fun part,” Sweet said. Dried clay pieces are coated with glazes, some purchased and others made from scratch, and it is in that process that colours begin to emerge. “But the firing changes everything, and you never know exactly what you are going to get—that’s the joy of it.”
For more information, drop into the shop on Saturdays, email mudders@valleymuders.org or visit the Facebook page, Valley Mudders Pottery Group, and Conversations.
