Example B · Basis · 5 pages Fictional business, website by SGS · Why does this site work? · also Example A · Example C · Example D · ← all examples · Nederlands
Steengoedpottery · Voorbeeldstad
Stacks of hand-thrown plates and bowls of speckled stoneware in oat white and celadon glaze on a wooden workbench, soft side light through a large studio window

Pottery in Voorbeeldstad · since 2016

Tableware for every day.And a place at the wheel.

We throw plates, bowls and vases from speckled stoneware. You can buy them in the shop behind the studio, and learn to make them yourself at the wheels next door.

See the class datesTo the tableware

In the middle: breakfast bowl in celadon, €29

Take a look inside

A shop at the front, clay at the back

Behind the counter are six wheels and two kilns. What gets made there is on the shelf a few weeks later.

Walk in and you smell wet clay. At the back of the shop Mariska Reinders throws plates and bowls every morning. Everything is made from one speckled stoneware clay, and everything ends up in the shop: mugs, side plates, dishes and vases. No two pieces are exactly alike, and yet they go together.

In the evening the same wheels become class places. On the throwing course you learn centring, opening and trimming in six evenings, with no more than six people at the table. Want to try it first? There’s the two-and-a-half-hour introductory workshop.

“Patience is the first thing you learn here. The clay has to be dead centre, or everything goes crooked.”Jaap Claassen, teacher

On Saturdays groups often come in: colleagues, friends, a family. In a group workshop you have the studio to yourselves, with coffee and cake.

And for chefs we throw bespoke tableware: first a trial series, then the full run. It’s already on the tables of six places in town.

The glazes

One clay, six glazes

All our tableware is made from the same clay. So everything goes together, even if you buy another bowl a year from now.

  • Oat whiteCreamy white with brown speckles from the clay.
  • CeladonSoft green and glassy, deeper in the hollows.
  • Iron redWarm rust red, matt at the rim.
  • TenmokuAlmost black, with brown where it’s thin.
  • Ash glazeGrey-green, from wood ash from our own stove.
  • Midnight blueDeep blue, our colour for winter.

Olaf mixes every glaze himself. For a new colour he sometimes fires twenty test tiles: a small piece of clay with a hole, half dipped in the glaze. The bare part at the bottom shows how the clay colours underneath. Only when a glaze still looks just as good after a hundred dishwasher runs does it go into the shop.

See the tableware

Diary

Coming up at the wheel

Small groups, and clay, glaze and two firings are included in the price.

  1. Tue 4 NovThrowing course, six Tuesday evenings19:30 – 22:00 · €3452 places left
  2. Sat 8 NovIntroductory throwing workshop10:00 – 12:30 · €854 places left
  3. Thu 13 NovThrowing course, six Thursday evenings19:30 – 22:00 · €345full, waiting list
  4. Sat 22 + Sun 23 NovWeekend throwing course10:00 – 16:00 · €3253 places left
  5. Sat 6 DecIntroductory workshop: mugs with handles10:00 – 13:00 · €955 places left

You can come with your own group from six people. All courses and prices

Wet, clay-smeared fingers centring a bowl on a spinning potter’s wheel, throwing rings visible
Centring: the clay has to be dead centre on the wheel.
Laid restaurant table with handmade deep plates in an iron-red glaze, a dish on top, warm evening light
Deep plates in iron red, thrown for a fish restaurant.

For the kitchen

A plate that belongs with the dish

A chef knows exactly how a dish should sit. We make the plate to match. We start in the kitchen, with the dishes on the table. Then we throw a trial series of six pieces in two glazes.

Only when that’s right do we throw the full run. Stoneware is strong enough for a busy kitchen and dishwasher safe. If something breaks, we throw a replacement in the same glaze.

Our tableware can be found at Wijnbar Kurk & Kelder, Visrestaurant Laag Water, Koffiebar De Rijpe Graan, Bistro Vijf Gangen, Ramenbar Sobaya and Hotel De Lindenhof, among others.

Potter in an apron spattered with clay by an open ceramic kiln full of freshly fired tableware, shelves of bisqueware in the background
Mariska Reinders at the kiln, after a glaze firing.

Four questions for

Mariska Reinders, potter

Why tableware, and not art?

I want people to pick it up. A bowl you use every morning becomes yours. I like that better than something on a plinth.

Where did you learn to throw?

At a pottery in Cornwall. We threw a hundred bowls there every day. After that I did the ceramics course.

What’s the hardest part?

Twenty plates that are all the same size. Clay shrinks in the kiln, so you throw each plate a little bigger.

And the best moment?

Saturday morning, when the kiln opens. You never know exactly how a glaze will fall.

“You never know exactly how a glaze will fall.”
More about the studio

Practical

Drop by the shop

Behind the counter you can see us at work. On Saturdays the kiln often opens: then there’s new tableware on the shelves.

Book a place
Studio shop
Wednesday to Saturday 10:00 – 17:00
Classes
Tuesday to Thursday 19:30 – 22:00
Weekend classes
Saturday 10:00 – 13:00