Mission Statement

The Potters Guild is a diverse community of professional clay artists sharing a love of clay and exploring its power to connect and communicate. Through planned activities and the sharing of knowledge and experience, we endeavor to stimulate artistic growth, inspiration and creativity, both within ourselves and the community at large.

History of The Potters Guild

“A  pot is more than one  person deep”

The roots of The Potters Guild lie in this concept and in the recognition that we can together build something that is more that the sum of its parts, more than a collection of pots, and more than the work of each of its members. Its roots lie in the traditions of pottery-making and a commitment to make our pots continually fresh.
In 1963 Paulus Berensohn began teaching pottery at Pendle Hill, Swarthmore College and at the Community Arts Center. The following year – 1964 – some of his students established an independent group, or workshop, calling itself The Potters Guild. Paulus’s role was monitor and mentor, in charge of the shop, equipment and materials, but most important, catalyst for each of us to find our own way in clay.
By 1967, when the pottery program at the Community Arts Center had grown to include classes for both adults and children in addition to The Potters Guild, Paulus decided to move to his farm and a different rhythm of work. The Potters Guild asked to rent the pottery studio from the Community Arts Center and to suspend adult classes temporarily while we learned to take responsibility for all aspects of pot-making (mixing of clay, glazes, firing, care of equipment, etc.) We agreed to jointly teach children’s classes and look for a new full time teacher. After a transitional, learning year, the Community Arts Center hired Kathy Dambach and The Potters Guild continued its independent operation, sharing the studio with the classes in the little building behind the Community Arts Center, then on Rogers Lane and about to be demolished for the Blue Route. After the Community Arts Center moved to its “new” building on Plush Mill Road, it built a studio for The Potters Guild on the rear of the  building and classes moved to the enlarged and refurbished basement.
The next major change came in 1988 when with the support of the Community Arts Center, foundations and individuals remodeled an 80 year old building of 1800 sq. feet, in front of the Center for the exclusive use of The Potters Guild, housing all its equipment and providing working space for members