Review of the Friends’ latest workshop by Cordelia Ellis.
Pottery masterclass by Emily Stubbs, held on 3 November 2025 at PSAD 3D Campus in Disraeli Road.
Photos by Nicole Hollingworth, PSAD Friends committee and trustee
The potter, Emily Stubbs was invited by the Putney School of Arts Friends to run a master class. Making a weekend of it Emily travelled down from her base in York to run a truly inspiring master class. Emily, known for her collaged sculptural pots with textured marks and printed surfaces playing with shiny, matt and unglazed parts of the surface highlighting and contrasting the print and textures creating a three-dimensional depth to the surfaces of the pots. Emily believes, “the quality of the mark is key, working fast and free with no preconceived concept or design to have fun and not over think”.
The morning session started off with Emily giving a brief resume of how she became a potter, with her first introduction to clay on her foundation course the “best academic year of her studies” and then graduating from Cardiff Metropolitan University. Setting up her own small studio in the centre of York in collaborative studio of artists. Emily introduced her process to us by showing how to slab roll by feel with the thickness varying depending on the size of the pots to be made. Our slabs were rolled to approximately 5mm in depth by rotating the clay in quarter turns and flipped over to, “confuse the clay memory”. Once the slab was rolled Emily started to manipulate the clay using various object to press, scratch, dig, emboss, with a variety of tools and objects, like milk bottle lids, lace, surforms, needles, serrated ribs, rollers and stamps. To create a layered three-dimensional surface. Careful not to over work the clay, Emily then decorated the surfaces using yogurt consistency slips and underglazes to mono print, screen print, draw and paint over the textured surface of the slabs to further enhance the depth and 3-D qualities of the slabs. With our heads now filled with so many possibilities we were sent off to roll out two slabs make marks and decorate them with explorative freedom with no preconceived ideas or inhibitions.
Coffee broke the morning session served with delicious banana loaf and lemon drizzle cake. But the creative flow quickly had everyone back in the studio.
Time flew with everyone in deep concentration and conversation sharing their discoveries as they played with making marks and decorating with slips and underglazes. The variety of the slabs in the studio were wonderful to see, with each slab a statement of the handwriting of the individual potter.
A quick lunch provided by the Friends fortified us ready for the second half of the master class.
Emily started the afternoon session by demonstrating how she turned the slabs created into abstract vessels. Selectively choosing areas of the slabs with interesting and contrasting marks, depth and colour. Emily cut the slabs into small pieces, pressed and overlapped them into a plaster mould. By collaging the pieces together, looking at the quality of the cut, torn and pinched edges she assembled the pots with overhangs, recesses and overlaps to create movement and interest facets of the vessels as they were turned, with no two sides similar, unique to the collision of slabs being manipulated. Full of inspiration we went back to our own slabs to start forming our own pots in the various press moulds in the studio. The shapes and forms that were created were so exciting, everyone expressing their own individuality and creativity was phenomenal.
Exhausted but fulfilled the day ended too quickly for everyone, with the pots and spare slabs wrapped tightly ready for everyone to pick up and finish in their respective classes the following week.
We all say that potters are the most willing to share, encourage and inspire, well Emily did this in so many ways and went beyond all our expectations. The wealth of knowledge that she shared with us with not inhibitions was enlightening. The pottery studio shelves in the coming weeks will be full of extraordinary vessels of different shapes and sizes rich in textures, marks and colours a testimony to Emily’s wonderful inspiring teaching.
A big thank you must go to Nicole for organising the whole day and for inviting Emily to Putney.
The PSAD Friends workshops organised throughout the year are a great opportunity to learn some new creative skills from established and up and coming artists and pottery masters, meet new colleagues, and share experiences during the workshop and delicious refreshments and lunch. Keep an eye on our website and social media news for the summer term workshops!
Read more about PSAD Friends and PSAD School History Here.
To Join the Friends click Here.