One of my favorite parts of designing pottery templates is seeing what happens to them once they leave my studio.
I develop each template here in New York through a fairly repetitive process: drawing, cutting, building in clay, adjusting the paper pattern, and building again. Eventually that small stack of paper becomes a finished template that can travel much further than I can.
Recently, some of those templates made their way to Czech Republic.
KERA Studio is now using From Fran vase templates as part of its Vases and Sculptures pottery workshop in Prague, where participants learn how to handbuild larger ceramic forms from clay.
Visiting Prague?
If you're visiting Prague and would like to spend a few hours working with clay, KERA Studio offers a Vases and Sculptures handbuilding workshop using From Fran pottery templates.
The workshop is open to beginners as well as more experienced makers, and instruction is available in both Czech and English.
It is a chance to experience the templates in person, learn the construction process with guidance from KERA's instructors, and build your own ceramic vessel during your time in Prague.
[View upcoming workshops and book with KERA Studio →]
From a flat paper pattern to a ceramic vessel
From Fran templates are designed for slab building.
Instead of starting with a pottery wheel, the process begins with a flat slab of clay and a printed paper pattern. The individual sections are traced, cut from the slab, and assembled by hand until the three-dimensional form begins to appear.
It is this transition—from something completely flat into a volumetric object—that continues to interest me most about working with templates.
And while I originally developed them as tools for my own studio practice, they have gradually become teaching tools as well.
A template provides students with a structure to begin with, while still leaving a lot of room for decisions about clay, surface, proportion, handles, decoration and finishing.
Learning handbuilding at KERA Studio in Czech Republic
KERA is a Czech ceramics studio with locations in Prague and Brno. Their Prague–Veletržní studio is now using From Fran templates in its Vases and Sculptures workshop.
Their Vases and Sculptures workshop focuses specifically on constructing larger ceramic objects by hand.
During the workshop, participants work with From Fran vase templates while learning how to build stable forms, connect individual sections and understand some of the technical considerations involved in constructing larger pieces.
The workshop is suitable for both beginners and more experienced ceramic makers, and instruction is available in Czech and English.
If you're looking for a pottery or ceramics workshop in Prague, you can find the upcoming Vases and Sculptures workshop directly through KERA Studio.
The same template, many different objects
One of the reasons I like seeing the templates used in workshops is that everyone begins with the same geometry, but the results rarely look identical.
A paper template establishes the underlying construction of the vessel. Everything that comes afterward belongs to the maker.
Different clay bodies change the weight and character of the form. Sections can be altered or repeated. Surfaces can be left raw, glazed, carved, painted or patterned. Handles and other elements can be added.
The template becomes a common starting point rather than a prescribed final object.
Seeing that happen simultaneously around a studio table is very different from making the same form alone in my own studio—and something I find particularly exciting about teaching with templates.
From Fran templates for ceramics studios and teachers
From Fran pottery templates can also be licensed for use in ceramics classes, workshops and educational programs.
The Teaching License was created so instructors can legally print and use the templates with their students rather than requiring every participant to purchase an individual copy.
I'm especially interested in seeing how different teachers adapt the templates to their own ways of teaching handbuilding.
KERA in Prague is one of the studios now bringing these forms into a classroom setting, and I'm very happy to see the templates become part of their workshops.
If you're in Prague and would like to build one yourself, you can learn more and book directly through KERA Studio.
[View KERA Studio's pottery workshops in Prague →]
If you teach ceramics and would like to use From Fran templates in your own classes or workshops, you can learn more about Teaching Licenses for studios and educators here →.
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