Design Junction Winchester to offer pottery workshops

Design Junction Winchester, in Kings Walk, will start offering classes from July 8 in the upstairs part of its shop. Customers will be able to enjoy three hours with a pottery wheel and some clay, with owners Jakob Davies and Amy Murphy giving them as much or as little guidance as they want.

Amy said: “We’ve tried to structure pottery in a sense of there could be more tutors. What we found looking at pottery studios around is that it is so structured to the point where you can’t come along and be mindful and have a laugh with it, it’s very serious.”

The pottery workshops will be held upstairs in Design Junction Winchester (Image: Newsquest)READ MORE: Handmade gift shop launches children’s art workshops following high demand

Jakob added: “The days we are going to do are Friday, Saturday, Sunday at the start, and they’re going to be self-guided. We will obviously go through health and safety, but it will mainly be about how [customers] want to work.

“Instead of painting something which is already made, they can make it and we’ll bisque it and they can come back and decide to glaze it how they want. It’s nice for people to come and do something not super serious.”

Amy tufts a rug (Image: Newsquest)Jakob and Amy set up Design Junction Winchester after meeting at Southampton University where they studied fine art and textile design respectively. After running a life drawing class in the Nutshell Theatre, they opened Design Junction in 2021, offering tufting and drawing classes.

Amy said that the shop is quite unique for Winchester, saying: “It’s very much our thing making arts very accessible for everyone. People charge loads for classes and courses.

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“We want to encourage people to stay in Winchester, because it’s better than you think. Everyone says ‘I’m going to go crack London’, and you can’t crack London. But Winchester has so many opportunities for people enjoy art.”

Design Junction Winchester also offers tufting and life drawing workshops (Image: Newsquest)Jakob said: “If we were in Brighton, we would be the same as every other arts shop. We’re trying to push the arts scene here. We want to become a hub, I guess.

“It is an exciting time to be here.”

Design Junction will start offering its pottery classes from July 8 following a trial run from June 24 to June 25. Sessions will cost approximately £45.