Pottery is a very popular craft activity at Camp W! Like so many artists in this part of Vermont, there is a long tradition of working with clay at camp— rolling, pinching, flattening, adding texture, and shaping it into amazing, colorful pottery. We have a pottery studio perfectly set up to learn the basics and advanced techniques.

A common project that campers work on is making a vessel like a cup, bowl, or vase. Kids may roll snake-like coils and stack them to form the beginnings of a bowl, or pinch and press a block of clay to make a cup. It is also fun to press leaves or twigs on smooth slab of clay to give it texture, and then use it to make a vase.

Campers also love to create sculptures – anything from a figure of a horse to a funny face or abstract form. An example of a helpful pottery technique for sculpting is called “slip”. Slip, a runny mixture of clay and water, is applied to join two pieces of wet clay together. The mixture acts like glue to help separate pieces of clay to stick together.

A very exciting part of a camper’s progression in pottery class is to throw pots on the wheel. Instructors help campers to center the clay on the wheel, open up the center of the clay, pull up the walls and shape the piece, and finally trim the base of the piece and clean the top. Each step requires time and patience to master, and many kids come away from Camp W with a collection of pieces and a greater sense of confidence in working with their hands to create something all their own.

Through the weeks at camp, everyone looks forward to the end of the session when all of the pottery pieces are put into the kiln for firing. When they come out, there is a rainbow of colors and delightful arrangement of different shapes and sizes of the pottery pieces.