Throwing Shapes, a new community ceramics studio in Dublin, has become a hive of activity in recent weeks. Opening it was the realisation of a dream for Síofra Murdock, a ceramicist from Co Down.
When she moved to the city, 10 years ago, she was in and out of different artist studios but “never really felt I had my foot in the creative community in Dublin”. When she was given pottery-throwing classes as a gift, about four years ago, she fell for the craft, dropped down to a four-day week in her day job – she had worked for an advertising agency for seven years while continuing her artistic practice on the side – and, realising there was nowhere to practise frequently in the city, bought a pottery wheel for her home. She soon wondered, given the success of community pottery studios in London and in the United States, whether something similar could work in Dublin.
Eventually, she quit her job, moved to Barcelona and “did a three-month course for opening a studio ... a ceramics professionalisation course. There are only a few in the world – it’s kind of like the Ballymaloe of ceramics”. She also lived in London for a spell, working at Turning Earth, which she says is probably the UK’s most accessible studio.
Murdock “became addicted to pottery, making my own work and as a creative outlet”. She had “hated being behind a computer screen all day. I find it genuinely painful on my back – which is funny, because you’d think being a potter would give you a bad back. But I think it’s the stress of being behind a screen.” When it came to opening her own studio, she says, “I thought, feck it, if I don’t do it now I’ll never do it. It’s great when you’re opening a business that you want to exist in the world.”
Murdock, who studied fine art at university in Manchester, where focused on painting and occasionally sculpture, applauds the work of Arran Street East, across the Liffey in Dublin, which also hosts pottery workshops and courses; she also received advice from Hen’s Teeth, a cultural events venue nearby, on securing a space in Dublin 8 – Throwing Shapes is on Mill Street, next to the Teeling distillery. A community studio, she says, is helpful for people who have taken pottery courses but want to keep their practice up. Throwing Shapes, she says, is “like a gym for ceramics. You pay a monthly membership” – which costs €200 – “and can use the studio for up to 15 hours a week.
“The intergenerational aspect of Throwing Shapes is what I really love. We have members in their 20s and in their 70s. They’re all having these gorgeous friendships. It’s really unlikely characters coming together ... I think because we’re all really passionate about clay, we all get on really well. You need so much patience with ceramics. It draws in really sound people who are very wholesome, I suppose.
“It’s very therapeutic, very mindful – there are no phones in the studio – and because people are working with their hands it grounds you nicely. People are coming in after a day’s work and making pieces. It’s a hobbyist studio, I suppose, but we do have professional practitioners in the studio as well.”
Throwing Shapes has eight teachers and three studio staff. Some members are now starting to teach, too. “That way it becomes its own ecosystem,” says Murdock. “It’s good to share knowledge. It’s all about everyone learning off each other and growing together.” Every three months the studio will host a ceramics market where people can sell their work and so help fund their membership. Trips to studios elsewhere in Ireland are also being organised.
Murdock, who lives near the studio, says that creative and community spaces are a great way to use ground-floor space in new apartment blocks that would otherwise become shops. “These buildings are popping up all over Dublin. If they put community-orientated businesses in them, people wouldn’t mind them existing as much. Don’t people see the value in this? On the opening day, people in their 70s and 80s came in, saying Mill Street used to be full of metalwork and leatherwork, that it was an industrial area with a lot of people making and manufacturing.”
Older locals in particular are enthusiastic “about seeing a craft back on the road”, says Murdock, who has noticed people stopping to watch potters at work through the studio’s big windows.
Throwing Shapes already has 70 members. Murdock hopes to reach 100 by the end of the summer, then take a breath “to try and understand the flow of the studio and not overwhelm ourselves”. Studio membership requires a degree of knowledge. Because instruction isn’t included in membership, the studio is for relatively experienced potters. There are also learning opportunities, however. If someone is learning from scratch, for example, they can become a member after taking one of Throwing Shapes’ own five-week courses or having 15 hours of teaching elsewhere.
“I’m proud to own a business as a young woman in Ireland,” says Murdock, whose aunt is also a potter. “I’m not a perfectionist, but I want everything to feel really unique and look good, and I have a high standard for things. But at the same time it’s about getting the doors open and the people in. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect from day one. People are sound, they’re encouraging, and they want you to succeed if you put yourself out there.”
