Galway Pottery Classes

You will not receive a text or an email to let you know when your pots are ready to collect. They will be ready to collect 6 weeks after your course finishes.

The pots that you make during your pottery course need to go through quite a process before they will be ready to collect. They will be dried out until they are bone dry before being bisque-fired in our kiln to almost 1000 degrees. They will then be coated, by us, in transparent glaze before going through a glaze firing which usually takes about two days. This whole process can take up to six weeks to complete.

This means that you will need to wait for six weeks after your course finishes before coming in to collect your work. We will then hold on to your pots for you for up to two months. After this time we will have to get rid of the pots, so please come and get them! Below you will find plenty of options for times to come and collect. The reason that we need to have these specific time slots is that these are the only times when you can be sure that someone will be in the workshop to accommodate you.

This system of a time limit is slowly being introduced, so if you have been in to a course with us before May 2023, your pots should still be there to collect. This is within reason, but even if it’s been a very long time, you’re welcome to come in and check.

So, when your course has ended, please wait for six weeks from the date of completion.

You can then call in for your pots during a class time. I am currently changing the whole system so for now it is fine to call in during classes.
You can find course dates and times on the website or through the following link:  Courses

Click on one of the class times that might suit you to call in (it doesn’t matter if it’s sold out) and then find a date that suits you, or go to one of the weekend course pages and find a date there. Read the course description to find the times that the course will be running (avoid lunchbreaks etc.). You can then call in during that class/course time.

The class tutor won’t be able to help you as the class will be on at that stage, but you can find your pots yourself: inside the door there are shelves, there is a list of names on each shelf, find your name on a list and then you will find your pots on that shelf.

If you cannot find all of your pots, please check the bottom shelf. Here there are pots with no names, initials or illegible names.

Only pots that were fully finished will have been fired and will go through this process, i.e. pots that have been turned, decorated, named and left out to dry. Everything that is made and finished will be fired and kept for collection. This means that not every pot that you made during the course will be glazed and fired and there for collection, just the ones that were finished by you on the course. Nothing is thrown out but if the pot does not have a clear, full name on it then you might have difficulty in finding it.

If the times do not suit you to collect, please send somebody else in your place to collect the pots.

There are no guarantees with firing pots. We do our best and take the upmost care throughout the drying, bisque-firing, glazing, glaze-firing etc. but sometimes pots do not make it due to a variety of factors throughout the process.