The studio
A small pottery on Kirkgate.
Vennick Clay is a shop at the front and a studio at the back of an old saddler’s workshop in Otley. Two wheels, two kilns, five glazes and a long table where the workshops happen.
- Opened
- 2019
- Pieces a year
- About 2,400
- Firings
- Two, to 1260°C
- Glazes
- Five, mixed here
How it started
Celandine Vennick learned to throw at evening classes in Ilkley while working as a set designer. Ten years of weekends later she had a shed full of bowls, a waiting list of friends, and a lease on the empty workshop at 17 Kirkgate.
The first year was mugs, mostly. Then the jugs, which people kept asking for, and the Ripple bowl, which has been in every kiln since. Today Celandine throws most of what we sell, and Tobi Akintola runs the studio, the workshops and the kiln schedule.
We buy a buff stoneware clay with a little iron in it, which is where the freckles in our chalk and oat glazes come from. The glazes we mix ourselves from raw materials, in small buckets, and test on tiles every time a new bag of anything arrives. It’s slow. It’s also why a cobalt mug from 2019 still matches one from this week.
“If a bowl comes out of the kiln with a glaze run, we don’t bin it. It goes on the seconds shelf, and someone always loves that one most.”
From bag to table
How a piece is made
About three weeks, start to finish. Most of that is waiting.
01
Wedge
Kneading the clay to push out the air and line up the particles. Ten minutes for every bag, by hand.
02
Throw
Centred, opened and pulled up on the wheel. A good day is forty mugs or twelve jugs.
03
Trim and handle
At leather-hard, the foot is carved and handles are pulled and joined. Then everything dries slowly under plastic.
04
Bisque firing
The first firing, to 1000°C, turns clay into something hard enough to glaze but still thirsty.
05
Glaze
Dipped by hand, two seconds for a liner, three for the outside. The foot is waxed so the raw clay shows.
06
Glaze firing
To 1260°C, then a day and a half to cool. We open the kiln together on the first Saturday of the month.
The glaze shelf
Five glazes, mixed here
The people
-
Celandine Vennick
Potter and founder
Throws almost everything on the shelves and mixes every glaze. Can be found most mornings at the left-hand wheel with Radio 3 on.
-
Tobi Akintola
Studio manager and teacher
Runs the workshops, loads the kilns and answers the email. Hand-builds the pinch dishes and the Totem vessels, and has never once dropped a teapot.
Have a go yourself
Wheel tasters every Sunday, from £65.