Sign up now for Winter 2025 Classes
Purple Sage Pottery offers classes for adults taught by teachers as committed to teaching as they are to pottery. While grounded in the fundamentals of hand-building, throwing and glazing, we strive to nurture your creative spirit. Classes are small, having at most 9 students.
You can take full advantage of our well-equipped studios, including electric wheels, slab rollers, extruders and various tools. We recycle your clay, a great benefit, which assures that you will always have clay in good working condition, giving you more time to create. Our extensive selection of beautiful reduction-fired glazes will practically guarantee the success of your work. It is handled with great care, and we pride ourselves on the exceptional results we get from our 70 cubic foot gas fired kiln.
Classes for Adults
Click here for class brochure (printable PDF)
Winter Classes start
the week of January 6.
Many of our regular class times will be available, but we don’t know yet where we will have openings, so make sure you get your name on our waiting list!
Monday evening intermediate/advanced:
Lisa Mistretta will help you to materialize your ideas in clay and helps you improve your current skills.
Tuesday morning intermediate/advanced:
Purple Sage Pottery owner Iris Minc helps you refine current skills and learn more advanced techniques, and create beautiful pottery and sculpture.
Tuesday morning beginner and beyond:
Jenny Graf will introduce you to working with clay and help you improve your hand building and throwing skills.
Tuesday night beginner and beyond:
Lisa Mistretta helps you refine your hand building and wheel throwing skills and explore various techniques to decorate and improve your work.
Tuesday night beginner and beyond:
Enjoy learning how to create your own functional pottery and improve your current skills with Becca Sands.
Wednesday morning beginner and beyond:
Jenny Graf will teach you the basics of working with clay both with hand building and throwing on the potter’s wheel. You will learn to create your own totally functional pottery or sculpture.
**Wednesday night beginner and beyond:
Anni Melancon will teach you how to take your pottery to the next level through fabulous projects on the potter’s wheel as well as hand built work. This class runs from 6:30 – 9;30 pm.
Wednesday night beginner and beyond:
Becca Sands will introduce you to the joys of working with clay through basic hand building and wheel throwing.
Thursday morning beginner and beyond:
Iris Minc will introduce you to clay with basic hand building and wheel-throwing. For those with some experience in clay, she will introduce more advanced techniques, giving you the tools to materialize your visions in clay.
Thursday night all levels:
Meryl Goldsmith will introduce the basics of hand building and wheel throwing as well as introduce more advanced skills to those with more clay experience to help you express your creativity in clay.
Tuition and class times
9 week winter Adult Session costs $450
- Morning sessions are 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
- Evening sessions are 6 p.m. – 9 p.m., unless noted with **
- **Evening classes run 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm when noted with**
$6.50 per pound is charged for finished pieces
Saturday Open Studio
9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
We now have an online signup sheet to help maintain a max capacity of 9 people per room. Most times there is plenty of room and signing up is not necessary, but occasionally it does get crowded. Click on the link to go to the Excel spreadsheet to sign up. Please follow the instructions and signup for one of the 2.5 hour timeslots. You can sign up for more than one slot if spaces are available for no additional cost, but please wait till after 10 pm on Friday or the day of to sign up for additional slots to give others a chance to sign up. You can download the Excel app to your smart phone for ease of use.
Saturday Open Studio time is available to former and present students. No instruction is offered during this time period. Current students may get additional studio time between classes and former students may work independently. Either may bring a guest under their guidance. First-time guests may attend free-of-charge.
Saturdays with class: an additional $60 will cover students for 10 weeks while taking a fall class. This fee is kept low to encourage students to practice. Current students may, however, pay $17 per Saturday or $8 per hour.
Former students and guests: $70 a month or $22 per Saturday or $9 per hour.
Kids & Clay
Unfortunately we are not running our kids class at this time.
To Register:
Call or email to check space availability for classes. To register for a class, please mail or drop off a deposit of $200 to Purple Sage Pottery, 3 Mechanic St., Studio D, Merrimac, MA 01860. The balance of $270 is due on the first day of class and should be payable to the instructor teaching the class . The registration fee is refundable up to one week prior to the start of class. Please indicate the desired class, and include your home and work phone numbers and email address.
[Download PDF of Registration Form]
Purple Sage Teacher Profiles
Iris Minc founded Purple Sage Pottery 30 years ago to create her own work and share her love of pottery with students and fellow potters. Iris has been developing her own unique style since graduating from college in 1981, designing her own molds, stamps and other tools to make her work truly one-of-a-kind. Her independent style and easy-going nature carries into her classes, where she helps her students materialize their ideas and concepts into clay.
Anni Melancon has been a studio potter in 
Gloucester since 1978. For 28 years she has generously shared with her students at Purple Sage her broad experience with clay and glaze techniques. Anni’s expertise includes decorative and functional stoneware, majolica, raku and pit firing.
Lisa Mistretta brings her love of clay and easy going nature to her pottery classes. she has been teaching at Purple Sage for about 16 years now. Students will benefit from her creativity and depth of knowledge, as she inspires them to take their creative energy to the next level.
Jenny Graf’s connection to clay began in childhood as she watched her grandfather; a teacher, musician, and potter, throw pots on his kick wheel in Rangeley, Maine. Jenny has been establishing her voice in clay since 2007, recognizing that the learning process never stops. She is thrilled to share her love of clay with her students, guiding them as they explore their artistic expression in clay.
Meryl Goldsmith’s passion for pottery began at Kennebunk High
School under the direction of art teacher Janet Merrow. She attended the University of Maine at Orono, and although her degree is in Broadcast Communications, pottery continues to be a big part of her life, whether it’s teaching classes at Purple Sage Pottery, or making and selling her own work. Creating pottery continues to be her passion, as Meryl has been making pottery at Purple Sage for 28 years now.
Becca Sands started her pottery journey at High 
Point University where she studied ceramics, sculpture and painting. She quickly took to clay and began to find her voice with surface decoration, using bright colors and intricate designs. Becca strives to help her students find their unique creative voice and strengthen their love of clay.
Studio Rental Info
For the potter who is ready to work independently, studio access is available. $150 per month will allow you to use the studio anytime.
You’ll need to purchase your own clay. Firing fees are charged by the kiln load for bisque firings and electric kiln glaze firings. Use of the gas kiln is figured by the cubic inch or by the kiln load for the more productive potters.
You will have your own storage shelf for tools and clay, as well as use of the studio racks and damp closet to keep works in progress. You will have control of your own pots through the various stages, including loading your own bisque kilns and helping load your pots into the gas kiln. Learning about gas firing your own pots is encouraged. You may use most of the studio glazes or mix your own. Support and instruction is offered to help emerging potters acquire the tools to become successful at making pottery on their own.