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| - I can't believe I'm only the second person to rate this place! Anyway, no surprise I went there for the first time on a Groupon for the Pottery Wheel class. They sold a ton (did I hear 2600?) this time. Apparently the Saturday classes are massively booked, but you can still get in on the Wednesday nights.
I wish someone would rate them for some of their other classes, or open studio, because all that stuff looks totally fun. You really do get dirty, no matter how perfect you try to be, so as they warn you repeatedly, "wear your play clothes!"
I'm 42 and took my mentee, a twelve year old girl (she's very grownup, but just being clear), and we both looovved it. Neither of us had ever used a pottery wheel and could barely restrain ourselves when Mishy (our instructor, and the resident artist at Desert Dragon) kept saying, "wait for me to get to you!" It's really amazing and addicting to get your hands on that clay, watching the wheel spin, and the cool shapes that come out.
As beginners, we were warned to prepare to love whatever we made as quickly as possible and move on to the next one because 'over loving' your clay piece can lead to totally messing it up - making it too thin, lopsided and crazy. And as beginners, we each made three pieces that were totally different and I'm not *completely* sure how that happened. :) Apparently when you've been doing this forever (or maybe even for 6 classes or so), you learn to control it all more and purposefully create that look you want.
The first thing we said to ourselves when we sat at the wheel was, "I want one!!" closely followed by, "when can we come back? and how?" and the answer is that they have Open Studio time and you can pay by the clay and firings. Mishy warned us that we can come in and play alone but if we do that right away we might be really frustrated because we really needed more time to learn the basics of centering with an instructor around - she suggested another class (or five lol). Since there are a group of us that want to come in, she said that if there are at least four that book together they could set a class just for us and it would be $25 each instead of full price (plus we get our own class, which is totally cool).
If that still seems pricey to you - they do have Dirty Hands Friday - just $12 and you get to play with clay (no wheel) and learn/do all the basic clay techniques. I totally want to go!
We were told to come back in 3 weeks to glaze our gorgeous creations. We can't wait.
BTW, since my husband asked this question, yes, this is waaaay more fun than going to those painting clay places (we're both mentors to young kids, so we've gone more than normal :) ). It's way more fun, beccause you're creating the clay piece. And btw, you still get to paint those clay pieces too! (if you're into that)
Oh, and one more thing, they warn you not to go to deep when you are hollowing out the middle - but why not? make a flower pot instead of a regular pot - stab that whole in the middle! just sayin'
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