Registration Fee $64.00. Class Fee, $300.00 Materials : $15.00
Total Cost of Class : $379.00
Taught By Judi Munn & John Perry
Learn to create beautiful, functional mugs, bowls, vases, and other pottery using an electric potter's wheel.
Come and try out forming pottery out of clay using the potter’s wheel! This three day workshop will cover forming, trimming, making handles, and some decorating techniques. Students may take their creations home or arrange to have work fired at the folk center for and extra charge. Sign up early, the class is Limited to 4 students. This class is for beginning to intermediate students who would like to learn the fundamentals of throwing and trimming. We will also explore adding handles and decorating techniques. No experience necessary.
This is a three day class during the spring session of Ozark Folk School. Registration deadline is two weeks before the beginning of class.
Registration Fee Due When Signing Up: $64.00.
Class Fee, Due Directly to the Instructor at the Beginning of Class: $300.00
Materials : $15.00
Total Cost of Class : $379.00
This class is for students ages 16 and up. Call the park at 870-269-3854 for more information
Looking for lodging? The Cabins at Dry Creek are located in the park just down the hill from your classroom. These comfortable climate-controlled duplex rooms are newly remodeled and offer a private bathroom, queen-sized beds, microwave and refrigerator. We offer discounts for students staying 3 or more nights. Call 870-269-3871 to book your room.
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Create your own class: You pick the date!
If the classes we offer don’t fit your schedule, you can create a specialized class at a mutually agreeable date! We need a groups of 3- 4 people. The prices are the same as for the regular classes. The cost is on a per person/per day basis: each day is $100 + materials ($5 per day) plus the $20 Ozark Folk Center deposit.
Ozark Folk Center resident potters, John Perry and Judi Munn offer pottery classes throughout the year. They teach beginning and intermediate forming and decorating techniques. In the potter’s wheel class students learn the art of “throwing” on the wheel. In the hand-building class students use the methods of pinch, coil, and slab building to create their work.
To sign up call Ozark Folk Center State Park Craft Director Jeanette Larson (870) 269-3854
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Meet Your Instructors
Judi Munn & John Perry – Wheel Thrown Pottery
John Perry and Judi Munn are the resident potters at the Ozark Folk Center. During the visitor season they demonstrate the art of making wheel-thrown pottery to the public. They form a wide variety of pottery out of raw clay. The following day, they trim and decorate them.
Most of their pottery is decorated with colored clay. For the critter pottery a slip trailer is used to draw an animal on the surface of the cup as well as decorate the small clay critter in the cup. For their beautiful fern pottery they press a real fern into the surface of the clay. Colored clay, or slip, is then painted over the leaf. Once the colored clay stiffens, the fern is removed, washed and dried. The stencil decorated pottery uses both brushwork and the slip trailer.
Their path to become potters was not a direct one. Both of them are certified to teach and hold Masters Degrees fields other than pottery. Judi took up pottery with the idea of adding Art to her list of teaching certifications. In 1992, after a year and a half of pottery/ceramics classes, she got an apprenticeship at the Ozark Folk Center with David and Becki Dahlstedt. John began his apprenticeship in pottery in 1996. They teach pottery at various times of the year at the Folk Center.
They say “We love making our living using our hands. It is satisfying to start with a lump of clay and produce a piece of work that may last for 5000 years, or more! The work sold here is functional stoneware. We designed it to be used and enjoyed."
Both John and Judi are active members of the Arkansas Craft Guild and the Memphis Potter's Guild. Judi’s work is in the collections of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Dale Bumper’s wife, Betty. Judi has published articles in three major ceramics Magazines: Ceramics Monthly, Pottery Making Illustrated, and Clay Times. Her work has won a variety of awards and honors. One of her pitchers is included in the book 500 Pitchers by Lark books. She was recently nominated for the 2022 Arkansas Living Treasure Award.
