Approaches to Clay with Ruthanne Tudball
Please find summer school details below additional information regarding this demonstration.

Ridge Pottery is pleased to announce a day-long demonstration from renowned potter Ruthanne Tudball on the 3rd of August 2025.
Making soda-glazed pots from her studio in Norfolk, Ruthanne is known for her unique and playful approach to clay.
“ Manipulating soft clay and feeling the material respond to the merest touch is like setting out on an exciting journey for me. The dialogue that goes on between the maker and the clay is carried out through the use of the pots. You pour, you eat, you store, you serve and you drink from them, and sometimes you just contemplate them. All of my work is manipulated and assembled while wet in an attempt to capture the softness in the finished piece. After firing and transforming the clay to stone, that softness can still be seen.”
Born and brought up in California, Ruthanne moved to the UK in 1968, and taught herself to throw on a potter’s wheel whilst studying English Literature at Reading University. In 1987 she began a postgraduate ceramics course at Goldsmiths University, where she spent her time researching soda glazing. In 1995 her popular book ‘Soda Glazing’ was published by A&C Black.
Ruthanne is an Honorary Fellow of the Craft Potters Association of Great Britain, an elected member of the International Academy of Ceramics and a member of the Norfolk Contemporary Craft Society.
At our studio deep in the Somerset countryside, Ruthanne will demonstrate her distinctive approach to making as she enters a new phase of her work focusing on handbuilding.
The day’s workshop will focus extensively on Ruthanne’s practice, taking an in-depth look at her approach to clay, exploring various forms and vessels, capturing the soft, fluid quality she is known for.
Participants are encouraged to be curious and ask questions; and are sure to come away feeling confident to experiment and expand their own practices in both throwing and handbuilding.
Times are 10am – 4pm with breaks for lunch and refreshments.
Cost is £60 per person.
Refreshments are included in the cost however lunch is not. There is an option to go to the local cafe for lunch. Please let us know in advance if this is your preference.
Click HERE to register your interest.
Summer School dates for 2025
Dates: | ||
June | Sunday 15th – Sunday 22nd | |
August | Sunday 3rd – Sunday 10th (Potters Invite Club) |
You can request to have your name put on our waiting list here.
Summer School Course Details
Our aim is to develop your potting skills, decorative techniques, glazing and firing skills. We endeavour to foster an appreciation of form, its subtleties, and variations as well as developing an awareness of the long history and richness of pottery. All this in an enjoyable atmosphere, where the experience of the routine in a working pottery and our “from the ground up” way of doing things will ensure you go away with a sense of achievement. We are passing on the knowledge we have acquired over forty years of potting, both in the UK and enriched by experiences working and observing techniques across four continents.
In the course of a week, the full scope of a potter’s cycle will be covered, from clay mixing to firing. Individual tuition combined with excellent facilities and our working methods will make this an experience to remember.
Course Schedule

Ground breaking weekly courses since 1970’s
Holistic intensive approach to pottery
Douglas started his ground breaking weekly courses in the 1970’s, pioneering the holistic intensive approach to pottery. He built on his training at Harrow and worked with the likes of Michael Cardew, Mick Casson and Gwyn Hanssen and his studies of the workings and production of indigenous potters in many parts of the world.
With the energy of youth, he covered what others thought was an impossible span of the potters experience, history and techniques in the long days of summer. The students responded to his enthusiasm and came from all over the world to take part.
Douglas Phillips established the pottery in Queen Camel in the late ’70s with the aim of making beautiful and useful pots of all kinds and sizes; also to continue with the summer school he had started in Devon. The summer school, with its strong international following, had become a corner stone in Douglas’s working life. The enthusiasm of these students, who travel often thousands of miles, to spend one week or several or a whole summer, to work long hours learning from Douglas, was very uplifting. In partnership with Jennie, and with the help of many assistants, the studios, kilns, clay mixing etc, quickly became a reality.
Unique idea
The summer courses are based on the unique idea of completing a potters working cycle each week. Using the well tried traditions of millenniums, including once firing in wood-burning kilns, has proved very appealing to aspiring potters (and to people who just wanted to get their hands dirty in a creative way) who continued to beat a path to Queen Camel in increasing numbers. Student numbers rose to 120 in one season, coming from 11 different countries. Wonderful though it was to have the world come to their door, Douglas and Jennie were feeling their energies and time for potting running low, so scaled back the number of weeks of teaching and varied the format.
Over the years they have held advanced 2 week courses, workshops on porcelain, salt glaze, kiln building and glaze technology. Numerous master potters have been to the pottery in Queen Camel to demonstrate and give workshops and this tradition continues. The list includes David Leach, David Eeles, Mike Dodd, John Maltby, Sven Bayer, Clive Bowen, Nigel Wood, Caroline Whyman, Walter Keeler, Colin Pearson, Mike Bailey, Jane Hamlyn, Paul Stubbs, Kevin Crowe, Christine Ann Richards, etc



