Black Sheep Pottery Studios, Shop & Art School — Local services in Skippack Township

I booked a pottery class for my mom, my sister in law and I to do as a Christmas gift. We went in February and Nicole was flexible with scheduling and communicated quickly via email with any questions we had. When we arrived, she was welcoming and friendly. Our expectations for a pottery class was to be able to learn something new and express ourselves in a way we've never tried before. We expected to make mistakes, laugh with one another, and enjoy the time in a completely new arena. We found this to be a very controlling pottery class where we were treated incapable of doing anything right without direct assistance and there was no room for attempting anything with the clay unless we were instructed or Nicole's hands were on ours/under ours in the clay as well. The teaching style did not fit our learning needs or wants and was honestly quite frustrating. We also were responded to with attitude due to lack of understanding at one point when none of our questions were being answered because we didn't need those answers at this time... All of our pieces look identical (because she formed them under our hands) and we all had to pick the same color for the glaze. There is nothing truly individual about our pieces or our experience which was a big disappointment after paying double what other studios charge for a single class. She had a ton of knowledge on technique and positioning which I'm sure is wonderful for someone who wants to perfect their skills. We just simply wanted a fun afternoon out making the best of our clumsy hands in a new expressive way, and unfortunately we experienced a very rigid instructive experience. This would have been helpful to have read on the website prior to booking so we had a better idea of...

My husband and I took a 1.5 hour wheel throwing class and did not have a good experience. The instructor spent the first half hour talking about herself, her education, pottery in different countries, her annoyances with pottery in the US (no clay in sight). Then she spent 10+ minutes having us wet our fingers and trace circles on the wheel (still no clay) while she tidied the studio. When she finally came over again she was rudely critical of our water circles. Then she spent 20 minutes showing us how to clench our thighs and move our shoulders (still no clay) and again was rudely critical. Then she had another student come pick up her project during our class and spent 10 minutes talking to her while we just sat there. She finally gave us some clay and didn’t explain any techniques on manipulating the clay, she just sat next to us, put her hands on top of ours and manipulated the clay while we had no say in the look or design of the bowls, she just moved our hands around for us. That took all of 15 minutes and the class was done. We left the class feeling super annoyed and bad about ourselves after all her criticism. We never even picked up our fired pieces because we didn’t like them and didn’t want to have to talk to her again. We tool a class at a different clay studio and it was a 100x better experience, so it was definitely her that we didn’t enjoy and not the...

Did not have a good experience here. The owner/instructor is very condescending and it comes off rude. Made me feel unwelcome from the minute we came in the door. Not only that, but it she was very distracted throughout the whole session helping customers coming to the door during a private lesson. We started almost an hour late which she told us was because she “builds in” extra time for situations like mine? Aka she had an appt run over and did not accommodate to our scheduled time. If I schedule a private lesson for a specific time, I would expect to start at that time and not an hour later because of a lesson that ran over. Took a month to pick up the bowls we made and she gaslit me about the appt day I had previously scheduled to pick up that was in my calendar a month in advance. Called me late at night to “schedule” a pick up that had already been scheduled only to tell me I had the date wrong and I needed to pick up on said new date. Won’t be going back here. If you want to feel dumb and like you don’t know what you’re...