THROWING ESSENTIALS

Wheel Throwing · Il Baciarino, Tuscany

September 20–24, 2027

Five days. Four participants. One question: what happens when you give your throwing practice your full, undivided attention?

Most potters develop their skills in the margins — the class once a week, the hour on Sunday mornings, the practice that fits itself around everything else. Throwing Essentials is built on the premise that five concentrated days of nothing but throwing, with teaching that is responsive to your specific body and your specific habits, can take you somewhere that years of marginal practice cannot.

The key insight behind this intensive is simple and easy to overlook. The way you throw is not generic. It is specific to your body — your height, your reach, your natural centre of gravity, the way your hands want to move through clay. The most common throwing problems are not technical failures. They are the result of working against your own body rather than with it. Five days of focused, one-on-one-style instruction gives us enough time to find your particular way of working and build from there.

What We Work On

The five days are built around throwing multiples — making the same form again and again, in identical sizes and in scaled variations. This is unglamorous work and it is the fastest route I know to genuine understanding. When you make the same cup twenty times, the variables become visible. You stop guessing and start knowing.

We work through the full sequence: centring, opening, pulling walls, shaping, and finishing. We spend time on the things that most potters rush — the opening especially, which determines everything that follows. We look at consistency, at efficiency, at the relationship between speed and control.

There is no hand-building in this retreat. No glazing. No decoration. Just the wheel, the clay, and the time to understand what you are actually doing when you sit down to throw.

A Typical Day

Long studio mornings with demonstration, personal instruction, and critique woven together rather than separated into blocks. Short afternoon breaks — the beach, the olive grove, the particular pleasure of a long lunch in Tuscany. Evening at the table, which at Il Baciarino is always worth staying for.

We also make pasta together one evening, because five days of serious work deserves at least one evening of serious pleasure.

Who This Retreat Is For

Throwing Essentials is designed for beginners as well as for the potter who has been throwing for a year or five or fifteen and has hit a specific wall, or who simply wants to understand their own practice better than they currently do.

Maximum four participants. This is the most concentrated teaching ratio of anything we offer.

2027 Dates and Price

September 20–24, 2027

€1,500 per person. This covers all tuition, all clay and materials, breakfast and lunch each studio day, and pick-up and drop-off from Grosseto train station.

A note on availability: all 2026 retreats are currently full. Early booking for 2027 is strongly recommended.

Before booking I recommend spending time with the Il Baciarino website and Instagram — it is the kind of place that sells itself once you see it.

The most common question I get about this retreat is whether someone's throwing is developed enough. Write and ask me directly. I will tell you honestly.