Pottery fever: ‘There’s a big demand for something different. People don’t want to go sit in a pub’

On Mill Street in Dublin’s Liberties, nestled among all the new hotels, distilleries and multistorey student accommodation, you’ll find a clay haven.

Throwing Shapes is the brainchild of ceramicist Síofra Murdock. Curious passersby can’t help but peer through the giant windows, plastered with bold red lettering – “Your Community Ceramics Studio” – to see what’s going on. On a quiet weekday afternoon there’s a handful of potters dotted around the floor, heads down and dutifully focused on their projects. Occasional chatter passes between the group, an exchange of tips and ideas. One of the studio’s teachers is preparing for an evening class, sitting at a pottery wheel as clay moves effortlessly beneath her hands.

The thriving community studio opened its doors in May last year. As well as a wide range of hand-building and wheel-throwing classes and workshops, the studio operates a membership programme whereby for €200 per month potters have access to the studio from 8am-11pm each day, with use of the wheels, kilns, glazes and other equipment.

“People want to work with their hands,” says Murdock, as cheery and colourful as the pieces on display behind her. “They want to spend their money on experiences rather than possessions and materialistic things.”

The shelves of the studio are lined with hundreds of creations, both decorative and functional, at varying degrees of completion. Some of the pieces have already been fired and glazed to perfection, others are still blank canvases. The studio’s glazes have each been assigned a name: Séamus and Stella – shades of teal and soft red – are particularly popular right now.

“A big part of what we have created is community,” says Murdock, who is originally from Co Down. “Some of our members, they’ve lived in Dublin for five years and they’ve moved here from China or the United States or Europe, and made more friends in six months in the studio than in the five years they’ve been here.”

Murdock lives a stone’s throw away, having moved to Dublin 10 years ago to complete a marketing masters at UCD’s Smurfit Business School. She first studied fine art in Manchester. While working in advertising for seven years, Murdock started taking pottery-throwing classes, fell in love with the craft and bought a pottery wheel for her home.

Noticing the success of community pottery studios further afield in London and the United States, and a gap in the market in Dublin, Murdock started to hatch a plan.

“The concept is new in Ireland but this is a business model that is very big in Berlin, Barcelona, most big cities,” she says.

Murdock built up the confidence to quit her job in advertising and moved to Barcelona. Here she undertook an intensive three-month ceramics professionalisation course – “the equivalent of Ballymaloe, but for clay” – designed for “people who either want to set up a studio or a professional practice to sell their work”.

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Seeking “real life experience” to back up this training under the wing of master potter Corrie Bain, she then spent some time working at Turning Earth in London, which she describes as “the biggest open-access studio in the UK”.

“The studios were filled with mainly women in their 20s and 30s working in the techy world. You could tell that [pottery] was just an escapism for people who work on computers all day.”

Business and ceramics acumen in hand, Murdock returned to Dublin on a mission to open the Republic’s first large-scale community ceramics studio (Belfast Ceramics Studio, founded by Helen Faulkner in 2023, operates a similar model), and Throwing Shapes was born. It has gone from strength to strength since opening just under a year ago, and now has 120 members. There are plans to expand upstairs to accommodate 80 more from their waiting list in time for their one-year anniversary.

When the studio held its Christmas ceramics market last December – showcasing the work of 40 potters including 20 studio members – queues could be seen winding down the whole length of the street. Gerry Godley, aka Bread Man Walking, kept the queue fed with pastries for one of his first pop-up appearances after the closure of his micro bakery in Rialto, while flowers from fellow Dublin 8 business Hopeless Botanics were also on sale.

“One of our potters sold out a whole collection in three hours,” says Murdock. “If a member is doing the market and they make €1,000, then that’s five months of their membership paid for.”

The spring market takes place on Saturday, April 5th from 11am to 4pm, featuring 34 potters, live music, food and drink.

As well as getting the opportunity to sell their work at seasonal markets, members can avail of masterclasses, talks from guest potters and retreats. A trip to Cape Clear Island, off the coast of Co Cork, is on the horizon for members wanting to experiment with alternative firing techniques.

Offering “the best education in clay” is the chief priority for the team at Throwing Shapes. Irish and international ceramicists will be teaching classes and workshops and giving talks over the coming months, and there are plans to introduce a level system to allow students to progress their craft.

A graduate scheme will open in June, offering free membership for a year to a recent ceramics student. A members’ exchange with a community studio in Leeds, and three residency programmes for international ceramicists, are also on the cards.

“It’s about quality not quantity,” Murdock says. “What’s really important for us this year is to establish ourselves as Ireland’s top learning facility for hobbyists.”

The members at work in Throwing Shapes can certainly vouch for its appeal. Niamh Rothwell’s love for the studio is so strong she moved house to be closer. “I didn’t know this area very well at all before,” she says. Now living a five-minute walk away, the 27-year-old can pop in whenever she likes. Her passion for pottery started a year-and-a-half ago, coincidentally at the same studio in London that Murdock worked – Turning Earth – although the pair never crossed paths during their time there.

As a participant in Throwing Shapes’s skills exchange programme and a seller at the Christmas market, Rothwell has thrown herself into clay, despite being relatively new to the practice.

“I was moving home and I was like, I don’t have a job, I don’t have anywhere to live. I might buy a pottery wheel. Then literally the week I was moving home Síofra launched the @ThrowingShapes_ Instagram and a friend sent it to me. I think I was the fifth member.

“A lot of my friends have emigrated. I was making the move home because I wanted to come back to Ireland, but I was also thinking I’m going to have to really make an effort to make a new group of friends, and then I joined here.”

As well as being an important social hub, Throwing Shapes has become a space to wind down after work.

“I work in healthcare so that can be quite intense. It’s nice just to come in here. It’s a very creative space.”

Rothwell’s pottery fever has infiltrated the algorithm. “I feel like it’s all over my feed,” she says, “but maybe that’s because I’m hanging out with a bunch of people who are obsessed with pottery.”

Emma Rose Hanley (27), another member, is working on a collection of small petal vases. Hanley came to Dublin in February after moving from the US to Ireland last September.

“I joined the weekend before I came here – my cousin had sent me an Instagram link,” she says.

No stranger to ceramics, Hanley graduated with her BFA from Appalachian State University in North Carolina last May.

“Every day I come in and it’s people who love mud, and I can get chatting to them about what they’re working on. Everyone’s always in a good mood, it’s a nice environment.”

Hanley says “social media is a huge driver” for the increasing popularity of pottery among her peers. “Seeing people throwing is intoxicating.”

Twenty-five-year-old Sinéad Gately sits across from Hanley, “working on a bit of coil building”.

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From Dublin, Gately is a fellow art graduate, having specialised in ceramics at Limerick School of Art and Design.

“Coming from college where obviously I’m surrounded by artists and ceramicists and then coming back to a community, it’s great,” says Gately. “It’s been desperately needed.”

Before finding Throwing Shapes, “there was nothing like this” for pottery fanatics.

“Your option was to try to get a grant from the Government, to try to get your own kiln. It’s not feasible for me because I live in a suburb and I doubt the neighbours would be impressed with me blasting a kiln in the garden.”

Over in Smithfield, Dublin Pottery Painting Studio is also a hub of activity. Ceramics technician Emma McMillan supervises a pair of assistants working intently to process the latest batch of creations, loading the hand-glazed pieces into two electric kilns.

“It’s a huge process, super lengthy. There’s lots of work to it. We’re lucky we’ve got a really good team here,” says McMillan, who is one of the studio’s 20 staff members working seven days a week.

“There’s so much pottery so we have to make sure that the quality is consistent.”

NCAD graduate Ciara Fullam opened Dublin Pottery Painting last January, and demand for classes and themed events has been through the roof ever since, she says. Tickets to one of their Pokémon or Studio Ghibli painting nights are especially hot commodities.

“Studio Ghibli is always a big hit. I think it’s like five or six times we’ve done that one because there’s very high demand,” says Fullam.

Fullam’s venture started with classes “in bars or wherever we could rent a venue” – and, seeing an appetite for more, the artist took a leap of faith to open her own studio.

Owing some of her success to the popularity of shows such as The Great Pottery Throw Down, presented by Siobhán McSweeney, Fullam says there’s a shared desire among people living in the city for creative social outlets.

“There’s just such a big demand for doing something different, getting out there and getting creative. People just don’t want to go sit in a pub.” Attendees are welcome to bring their own snacks and drinks – alcoholic or otherwise – to enjoy while they dabble away at their design.

While women are the studio’s main demographic, the few men who come along “always end up loving it”. “It’s usually like a boyfriend who’s been dragged along, or a dad or something,” says Fullam.

Those coming to the range of themed painting events, from Taylor Swift and Harry Potter to Shrek, are “usually between 18- and 24-year-old women … but then the pottery making is all ages, there’s a lot of older people”.

And customers keep coming back for more, some with plans to complete a whole set of ceramics. “There’s one girl who’s been 11 times,” says Fullam. Another “an older woman, comes back and does these special plates that she hangs up on her walls for every country she’s been to”.

There are 18 different items to choose from to paint, with mugs the most popular choice.

Patience is a virtue in the world of pottery. Pieces can take up to six weeks to be ready for collection – but rest assured your customised creations are in safe hands.