Best Venues
Everyone is bad at the wheel for the first ten minutes. The clay wobbles, goes lopsided, collapses. Then it stops fighting you, the walls come up under your thumbs, and there’s a bowl sitting there that you made yourself.
You can’t touch your phone with clay on your hands either. That’s half the fun.
Singapore has sixteen studios for this sort of thing, and the choice comes down to one question: do you want to take something home the same day?
Take it home the same day
Anything on canvas or fabric is finished when you are.
- WE ART, The Centrepoint — open six days a week, with a teacher or on your own. The easiest one to get to.
- The Art Nooq, Pearl’s Hill — you get the studio to yourselves rather than sharing it with another group.
- Artist Tique Co, Farrer Road — run by professional artists, full of plants, and drinks and snacks are included.
- Our Art Studio, PLQ Mall — you can book a proper class, or just take a canvas and get on with it.
- Mochiart, Geylang — you can paint tote bags, t-shirts and sneakers here, not just canvas. It also handles very large groups.
- Motion Art Space, Arab Street — a bottle of paint swings from a pendulum above a spinning canvas. You let go and gravity does the painting.
- Splattify, VivoCity — one for children. Paint and slime, and getting covered is the whole idea.
Learn the wheel and collect it later
Clay has to be fired twice, so your piece stays at the studio. Most places take about three weeks, but ask when you book, because some take a lot longer.
- The Potters’ Guilt, Pearl’s Hill and New Bahru — run by professional potters. You get ninety minutes at the wheel with someone sitting beside you.
- Meso Ceramics, Geylang — upstairs in an old shophouse. Two-hour classes, and you can pick one with more time at the wheel or less.
- Am I Addicted, Orchard Central — teaches both the wheel and shaping by hand, right on Orchard Road.
- Studio Asobi, Hougang — a home studio run by two potters. Six people at most, three hours, snacks provided. It feels like being taught in someone’s kitchen.
- Urth & Phire, Tai Seng — offers a trial class, and if you love it you can carry on with a full six-session course.
Or decorate one someone else made
Pick a mug or a bowl off the shelf and paint it. No wheel, and you don’t need to be any good.
Clay Clay on North Bridge Road, Hue Your Days in Joo Chiat, and Taoz directly above Somerset station.
These get fired as well, so you collect them another day.
Before you go
Keep your nails short and wear sleeves you don’t mind ruining. And the glaze changes colour in the kiln, so what you paint isn’t quite what you get back.
Why people come back
Most of what you do on a Saturday is over by Saturday night. Clay isn’t. Weeks later a message arrives to say your bowl is ready, and you go and collect something you’d half forgotten making.
Sessions, prices and firing times vary — check with the studio when you book. If something on one of our listings is out of date, tell us.
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Opening hours, prices and details change. Please check with the venue before travelling — and if something here is out of date, the report form on any listing takes about twenty seconds.
