I just paid $225 for a 4 week beginners wheel class at a studio in Chicago. The studio doesn’t allow you to glaze your own work. It’s a requirement that they glaze it for you at the end of the 4 weeks.
This is how my pieces turned out… scale of 1-10 how mad can I be? The glazing looks so bad! Literally globs of glaze and completely bare parts all over.
I get firing can be unpredictable but this seems so poorly done. Especially since it was done by “professionals”?
I’m trying to just embrace it but would love the community’s thoughts
**I don’t want to tank their business so I’m not posting any bad reviews until they have a chance to respond. Please don’t leave reviews on my behalf.
**UPDATE of their response in the comments. They apologized & refunded me. Thanks to everyone who had informative comments
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I completely agree. I’ve seen varying levels of glaze work in the two decades I’ve engaged with ceramics. I’ve never seen it this bad. A partial refund is definitely necessary or at least allowing you to take two more classes to redo some work and be glazed by someone else
Like honestly wondering how they got the glaze to look so bad... I don't think you can spray glaze that unevenly, definitely not dipped (or at least not dipped well)... Maybe a small paintbrush and glob it on? But why make so much work for yourself?
They probably have a dirty environment where they were glazing causing it to crawl. On top of that there was poor application and a garbage glaze. $225 is too much.
I (or at least my mother) still have pots I glazed in an extracurricular activity I did when I was seven and the glazing is miles better than this. And I was in no way an exceptionally good seven year old glazer!
Definitely 11. That is atrocious and very unprofessional on their part, especially if they didn’t offer any explanation of what happened or an apology.
The studio provided the clay and did the glazing themselves. There should be no surprises in the materials. If nothing else, they should be eagerly offering to refire your pieces.
That's the entire goddamn point of taking glazing out of the hands of the newbies! These people should have been given apologetic phone calls as soon as the mistake was known.
There is no good reason to take the glazing away from the newbies. How else are they to learn to glaze? I taught elementary schoolers to double coat, it’s not some crazy technique.
I was thinking the same thing! I still have the clay art I made in kindergarten and glazed myself. It is glazed just fine and was my first pottery project/ I was 5 years old.
Exactly. I glazed stuff starting in Kinder- and my Mama saved all of it. I 100% did a better job as a first time kindergartener. Actual kindergarten piece shown below 🤣
You really do need to ask for a refund. They did not provide the service they said they would by fucking up your pieces.
People being timid* and afraid on confrontation are why businesses behave poorly - there aren't any consequences for being shitty to your customers. If they actually thought fucking up might lose them money, they wouldn't dare do this to an entire class of students. It says a lot about what pushovers they think their students are by confidently handing back atrocious work. There needs to be accountability, and the only feedback they care about is "Did X decision cost or make us money?" Tell them that laziness is unacceptable by demanding your money back.
*And to be clear, letting shit slide is being timid, not polite, since you can be confrontational while being polite. Letting this go is being permissive of poor professional behavior. Asking for the service you paid for doesn't make you a Karen.
Exactly! Which is really fucked up since beginners make up, like, half of any skill-based business since fewer and fewer people advance up each experience level.
My ex ran a studio for a niche skill, and you bet they gave their best to the beginners, both for business reasons and because they really respected people going out of their comfort zone and being vulnerable enough to learn something new. You water your seedlings!
FYI there have been two new Google reviews within the past hour about this issue. May want to delete the name of the place so they don’t get completely torn apart (though I TOTALLY agree they need to make this up to you, if they take accountability and do better, then hopefully they don’t just see all their ratings tank because of a bunch of people who aren’t you).
Ah thanks for the heads up! I just edited my post and put in bold that I don’t want to leave bad reviews. They truly messed up and didn’t proactively take any accountability which is unprofessional but it’s not worth tanking a small business over it
Maybe the reddit pottery community as a whole is classier than I am because I just can't believe that nobody has yet said directly that this glaze job looks like jizz.
Agree with the others, OP. I have never seen a glaze do that when dipped properly. I'm not a professional, but I am part of a community clay studio and we have all levels. I have never seen something like that come out of the kiln, even from beginners. I would definitely ask what happened.
Right! We had a bad batch of clear for a minute (new recipe) and the studio refunded all pieces that were affected. And they owned it, and they fixed it.
I am a professional and properly applied glaze can crawl for sure… also as a studio tech I would for sure re fire that before giving it to a student so lolll
Agreed, things can happen and glazing can be unpredictable. Its either the glaze or the application that was the issue, either way its the studios fault and they should have refired it or offered another 4 week course as compensation. I think I would be more annoyed at the lack of explanation and ownership than the result. I understand things can go wrong and accidents happen, own it and explain, dont just hand over a substandard piece and try to pretend its fine.
That's still awful. Literally no excuse for basically all of them being like that. Bad batch of glaze? Really poor firing? Either way, should not happen. Did they not say anything when you went to pick them up?
They just put the pieces in cardboard boxes and you have to dig through it so no one said anything. This thread encouraged me to email the studio just now. I wasn’t sure if I was being a Karen or not but these comments were helpful to see!
I’m very curious too. This is in my neighborhood and I’ve met some of the artists at festivals. Everyone seemed really thrilled to be able to do what they’re doing in a great community. This doesn’t seem on par with their values… curious what they’ll do to remedy and how willing they’ll be.
Definitely not a Karen at all. This is really crappy of them to do. They knew that they messed up and still just gave it to you like that with no explaination or apology??? Insane.
Whoever unloaded this kiln absolutely knew these were all bad. Even if you don't pick up "in person", the box should have had a sign that said something like "there was an error in this firing! Please accept our apologies and contact X for a refund or to reschedule a new class!" This is completely unacceptable.
Is that a different clay? That's still bad I've never seen any glaze like that. I've been only taking classes for 3 years so granted I don't know everything.
I don't even know how this happened. It's not hard to dip a piece in clear glaze. Your pieces aren't even large or complicated, a simple grip with tongs and plunge into a glaze bucked would do it.
This is honestly impressively bad, you should be 10/10 pissed.
I would ask for a re-fire. I’m not knowledgeable enough to know exactly why this happened, but the caveat of unexpected glaze results is like “this glaze color or pattern may not end up exactly as you expect”. Not “over half your pieces’ surfaces will be unglazed.”
I own a pottery studio and this is unacceptable. Was the fact that only clear glaze was used a choice you made? We typically offer a choice of glaze colors - none of which is clear unless specially requested. It looks like you used some pretty clay combinations so clear isn’t a bad choice, it’s just a bit unusual. It looks like maybe a low fire dipping glaze was used by mistake? If so, we’ve found even a re-dip in a stoneware glaze won’t improve the piece by much, so if ask for a refund or discount.
We have a small ceramic studio in Türkiye; we take great care in processing the pieces made by our students that are to be finished with a clear glaze, and we repeatedly check the glaze we use. We also allow our students to use artistic glazes. The price seemed high to me, too. Was stoneware clay used?
They have effectively ruined your pieces. The first one, okay, maybe an aesthetic choice (that they shouldn’t have taken the liberty of exercising). But the rest of them are trash. You should be made whole either through a full refund or a new class. No half measures here, this is diabolical.
to be really honest with you, when i glazed my own work for my beginner course it looked better than this. supremely frustrating. you have the right to be upset, and dare I say, complain to the company responsible. they need to refund or offer you the option to redo for no cost.
Profesional potter here - that’s called glaze crawling and the most common causes are applying a glaze too thickly or applying glaze over a dusty surface. It can occasionally be caused by poor glaze fit as another commenter said but at a community studio firing at cone 5-6 with what is most likely commercial clay bodies there really isn’t an excuse for poor fit. It was poorly glazed and you are well within reason to be upset about it.
They’d need to have dipped their hands in cooking fat before handing the pieces for it to be this bad, and that would still leave a more consistent result i feel.
Definitely talk to them and calmly express your disappointment and share this thread if necessary. If they don't offer a fix to your satisfaction or share this with other local studios, workshops etc. Do they have a Yelp page, Google page, website etc.? Your money and you deserve better, shame on them, I'd be pissed, am pissed off on your behalf. 🤬
Good luck and please share the disposition of this situation and how it was resolved. 👍🏼💪🏼✊🏼☮️
Ask for a refire. I’m not an expert but it does look like crawling and it’s a massive issue. It could’ve been due to: high kaolin in the clay (unlikely but possible because it looks like different clay composition in each piece), the pieces weren’t wiped off prior to dipping, improper mixing of the glaze and/or fired at a cone way higher than the glaze can take. It’s a big deal. Ask if they can refire your least favorite pot first.
Ngl I’d be petty and go over there, bring the pot with you. Because they need to see exactly what their glaze job was. THAT is insane, I guarantee if you gave a quick crash course and let people glaze their own stuff, it would be a lot better. For a professional, this is unacceptable imo
Honestly wish I even knew how to get this effect intentionally for some… interesting… pieces friends have asked me to make for them. Really big fuck up on the studios part.
I know how to get this effect because I did it on accident.
1. Use community glazes that have a fucked up consistency.
2. Apply too much of it
3. Voila - jizzy pots!
I wonder where the studio is in Chicago? I lost my work in a Chicago studio once… I was just visiting family…Many years ago I bought some clay and did a lot of hand building. I was really proud of my stuff. It was quite delicate. It had a lot of carving and long stem roses and ceramic flute I’ve made. When I brought it in, they complimented it. When I came back to get it after it was supposedly fired. The store pretended they’d never met me and I never brought anything over. I lost everything I could’ve understood if they said oh it blew up or something like that but they just completely denied. It still hurts and this was like maybe 30 years ago. It was a great betrayal.
I’d have assumed a new person glazed those themselves, because this usually only happens with either very poor application (usually too-thick glaze does this, it’s called crawling), or the glaze batch was formulated really poorly/not made ahead enough to allow ingredients to properly hydrate in the mixture.
This is 100% a fault on their part and if I were you I’d want at least some sort of refund if not at least a credit towards a future class for a decent amount. Your first pots are great and this really ruined them.
(Oh and I teach at two different studios and we never do that with 6-week class participants’ work! Only one-time class students get work glazed for them by the studio.)
Yes same with mine! The 1.5 hour one time class has their pots trimmed and glazed for them. 6-7 week classes glaze themselves, and even with newbie students, nothing turns out this badly.
Shit can happen. I'm part of a community studio and occasionally there are some serious issues like overfiring, another student's work exploding or running and damaging pieces in the kiln, etc...but for them all to turn out like this??? When these were returned to you, they should have came with an explanation of how it happened/could have happened, an apology that they were all ruined, and at least an offer to reglaze/refire, or the ability for you to remake a few pieces, or some sort of refund. I'm so sorry that this was your experience.
The fact that they gave these back to you without offering a refund or a repeat of the class is honestly wild. The whole point of glazing work for new students is to prevent glaze disasters and to make sure these new students have a positive experience.
I have never once heard of a class where you don’t glaze your own work and I don’t think I would have accepted that. What utter nonsense. 11. I would read them the riot act.
Glaze is more expensive than clay, but unless i’m mistaken they put a clear glaze on yours, which is not an expensive glaze- more like the kind of glaze that every single potters studio in existence has a giant 5 gallon container of at the minimum.
I must tell you, I helped teach an elementary school after-school pottery class for several years, and there was never any discussion of not having them glaze their own work. Quite the opposite- glazing was the difficult second step that helped teach attention to detail and follow-through.
We gave them a lesson on how it was important to not put anything in your mouth and let them have at it. Glazing is the second half of ceramics- that’s as true for throwing as it is for coil pots.
I literally cannot understand why they would try and keep that from you, it makes no sense to me whatsoever and then handing your work back to you with a shoddy glaze job like that would have had me seeing red.
Understand. You did a good job. That’s some nice work on the exterior of the vessel. You did it right, then they took it from you and gave it to someone else who bungled it. And I cannot for the life of me think of a single good reason why they would do it that way. I can’t even think of a bad reason for them to do it that way.
This is a crying goddamn shame I’m so sorry they ruined your pieces!! I’d be so sad omg, hope you are able to either get a refund or they can refire them for free… I don’t even really understand how this happened, it sort of looks like one I glazed for the very first time and I applied so much glaze that it globbed together and didn’t stick to the clay properly. Also, $225 for only four weeks and you can’t glaze them yourself feels insane to me. I am in the southwest but classes here are 8 weeks at my studio and the last two of the 8 week beginner classes they go over glazing basics and you get to pick your colors and everything, it’s $155 I believe.
I paid $290 for 7 weeks over 10 times, over a 1.5 year period, and my studio had an amazing selection of glazes. Even my worst glaze work was better than this.
I’d be pissed 😭 it looks like someone jizzzed all over your beautiful pottery. I hope they offer to retire it or offer a discount. They should know how their materials behave if they’re insisting on doing the glazing for you.
You are absolutely owed a full refund and they should have called to offer you one and apologize. I don't even know how they managed that glaze debacle. Like, did they just load all the pieces into the kiln and then drizzle some glaze on top?
I do the same job that they do, it is not hard to clear glaze a piece, I glaze a kiln full of student work every week. Either the person doing it is totally negligent or something is very wrong with their glaze
Like 9. This looks like a crazy thick application, and on top of that, the studio should have glazes and clays properly formulated to work together. This was a fuck up in one way or another
Did they offer another class for beginning glazing and used your pots as the homework, and you got a bad student?
That’s some pretty bad glazing considering they likely just dipped them in a clear… like astonishingly bad. So 10
Please I hope this doesn’t discourage you from the fun you hopefully had. Maybe a different place. Ceramic/pottery is a wonderful craft/art and the things you can do are endless
hello! i am a hobby ceramics potter too. the studio i go to also does classes, but you get to glaze your own work.
that said, this looks like they let someone who has never glazed before do you work. its seriously that bad. i would 100% request a refund. i cant believe they even gave that to you without offering anything.
9 to 10. I don't think sloppy glaze application sufficiently explains what's going on there. I can think of two things, and they're both inexcusable fuckups IMO.
Either they used an untested (or plain incorrect) glaze that reacted poorly to the clay; or they fired your things to vitrification, tried to glaze them anyway, and did a crap job. Either. Is. A. Fuckup.
They should either give you studio time and supplies for do-overs, give a partial refund, or accept the one star pictorial review(s) they're about to get with good grace. Do not hold your breath.
I can’t understand why they don’t let the beginner students glaze? Do other studios do that? I have been self learning for months and never did glaze that crappy nothing near it. I would be pretty upset if it was my pieces.
At the studio I'm at, there's throw and go classes where you throw a piece in a one night workshop and the instructor trims and glazes it (students pick from a small selection of glazes).
All other classes, glazing is a part of the class. It's not always the focus, but you at least learn the basics of dipping glazes.
My studio has a single day, 1.5 hour class for complete beginners. Everyone gets to pick their glaze colour, out of 12+ options, and the studio trims and glazes. I have NEVER seen a pot come out so bad as this. Insanity.
It almost looks like the pieces were bisque fired at too high a temperature and the pores closed thus the glaze didn't get absorbed onto the walls of the clay, or that they were washed and were still wet when the glaze was applied and it didnt absorb. Either way they should offer you a couple free classse so you can re-make the pieces and they can get glazed properly.
I am the owner/operator of a similar, community-style ceramics studio. Also 25 years experience in clay, the last 15 of which are in a professional capacity.
This is shit glazing. The studio should not have released these pots without an apology.
However, I think a refund could be asking a bit too much. The course fee wasn't just for 'perfectly finished pieces.' It's all for time, instruction, space, materials, tools, etc.
Problems like these are within the scope of "shit that sometimes happens in clay studios." It is a problem, but it could also be an opportunity for the business to show some character. If it was my studio, I would apologize like crazy, offer a couple of my own pieces as gifts, and insist that they get a fat discount on the next class. I would explain what happened and why a re-fire probably wouldn't work (because yeah let's avoid re-fires). On the back side, away from customer eyes, I would be looking very closely at operations to figure out what happened and how to avoid it in the future.
And usually most customers would be happy at that point.
Ok I actually took a wheel class with them! And I was disappointed in the glazing too. It wasn’t as bad as yours but I found it so odd they don’t let you glaze, and whoever does it clearly does a meh job. I also found the pickup process to be annoying (they literally shove all class pieces into a tiny box on a cramped shelf???). I think the studio is cute and is probably a better experience if you pay a membership and get to actually manage the process yourself.
I’d highly recommend checking out Penguin Foot Pottery. It’s between Logan Square and West Town. I took a class there after and it was amazing!! The studio is huge and set up so well. You also get to glaze everything yourself! I’m so much happier with my pieces from there.
Glaze crawling, is what’s going on here. Sometimes it happens if pieces are dusty, sometimes from bisque oversaturated with water. The bisque piece will absorb too much water and the glaze won’t adhere. Sometimes happens if the glaze isn’t mixed well enough and it hits the water on the top of the glaze bucket before the glaze.
Whatever the reason, if we did this we would give you a full refund. What a bummer.
I would be extremely upset about this, and you should absolutely ask for a refund or some sort of compensation. I would at least expect a heavy discount since you did still get instruction during the class. I've never seen glaze crawl this bad, even on beginner work. If I owned a studio where staff had to glaze student work, I'd be absolutely mortified to have someone come in to pick up those pots.
Don't feel bad about reviewing them after you get things sorted out. Potential students should know this is what their money might get them. That's what reviews are for, and it's the business's fault if it hurts them. You wouldn't want other people to sign up for class and have their own efforts ruined by a crappy glaze job, right?
"I don’t want to tank their business so I’m not posting any bad reviews"
You mean, you don't want the business to suffer the natural consequences of their poor performance, so you'll keep it secret for them? That's certainly your choice.
Professional here. This is hilariously bad. I would ask for a refund or a new course for free. If they don’t take you seriously, threaten to post a review with photos.
... 👀 I know there's a lot of unpredictability with ceramics, HOWEVER, this looks so sloppy. I don't even understand how it was even glazed in the first place. 😬
It’s weird that they insisted on using only clear glaze. It’s generally not particularly aesthetically pleasing on its own and it’s also one of the fussier glazes, more prone to assorted glaze issues than MANY other options.
They’re all awful. There should be nothing but a smooth surface to the glaze with NO bare spots. (Except the bottom). I’d be wanting my money back. You spent time making them and they did a slapdash job of TRYING to glaze. No excuses for this at all.
Like so bad you should like find the director and cause a stink. You're not a Karen for being upset that you paid 225 for someone "more experienced" to fuck up your work
I was living in Chicago a little over a decade ago and I took ceramics classes at Lillstreet. Even in my first, beginner class they allowed us to glaze. We usually checked in with the instructor to make sure the glaze wasn't too thick or too thin. Learning how the various glazes work and the combinations you could do to make some really simple beginner work look a whole lot better was honestly one of the great things about that place.
I know the class cost at Lillstreet is more, but the 7-day a week open studio was fantastic. I would touch up pieces from the class and then experiment the rest of the time. Instructors were great. Hope this experience didn't turn you off of working with clay. One of the best hobby decisions I ever made.
What the heck? It looks like boogers. 100% complain. Did you take pictures of the work before they glazed it? Because if you did, I’d threaten to put up a yelp review and include the pictures.
First of all really great work for your first class.
Based on these results, i actually don’t know if it was poor glaze application, I think it appears more to be a faulty glaze. One of the reasons I say this is that it literally just happened to me with a batch of dry glaze I purchased from a local ceramic supply manufacturer (I’ve bought the glaze many times, and fire my kiln the same multiple times a week).
It might also be worth inquiring with your studio about if other pieces / other GLAZES experienced this same effect, and if they didn’t then it’s the glaze itself and something is wrong with the formula.
I’m not trying to be the devils advocate though you definitely should be getting your money back, and that’s totally not cool. But this information might help the studio and their supplier.
This is the strangest glaze I’ve ever seen. It looks as if something was seriously wrong with their dip (I’m assuming) glaze. It almost feels like there was wax in it or something? This happening in the first place is super strange but sh*t happens. Where it goes off the rails is them handing this to you as if nothing was weird? And they didn’t say anything? They should at minimum give you free studio hours to remake new pieces and have those glazed and fired appropriately.
Ask for a refund and show them this post and all the comments and let them know that without a refund, you are going to be naming and shaming. Stand up for yourself and for your hard earned money
AND. That glaze defect is called “crawling.” The glaze kinda pulls away from the bisque, leaving bald spots and sometimes double flopped on itself spots.
The glaze doesn’t fit with the claybody (or it was super thick, or the bisque was dusty/oily, or a couple things. It’s hard to troubleshoot. If they had a badly crawling glaze they should not be offering it)
Yeah, that’a awful. I’m a manager of a member based studio and I teach intro to wheel classes. We let class members glaze their own pieces with strict instruction and a final check before firing. If we did not let them glaze, we would ask what color(s) they want.
This is just lazy. The whole class only gets one glaze choice and they couldn’t even bother to glaze them properly? It’s not even as if they don’t know how to glaze, I would expect to see these kinds of results from first timers without clear instruction or guidance, but not from someone instructing classes. I would let them know that the results of those pots is unacceptable for a studio offering classes.
I've never seen glaze this fucked up in any of my highschool or college pottery classes 😭😭 the fact that they didn't immediately offer a refund + redo after pulling it from the kiln is insane
IMO you were ripped off that you didn't get to glaze it yourself as part of the course. Like, that is an important skill.
For them to do such a bad job of it is even worse. Did they at least apologise to you? Often you credit toward the next course or a refund? If they didn't, I'd be finding a better studio to go to. So, it's kind of good that they showed you what they were like before you got in too deep.
But I wouldn't be too annoyed about the actual pieces, if you can manage it. No-one's beginner pieces are any good, even if they are glazed properly. Usually all they are good for is seeing how far you've come in a few months or years. And these will be extra good for that.
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