Hinckley Pottery is a privately-owned urban studio, gallery and shop housed in a former stable built sometime before 1900. It is located in the historic Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC, next door to the venerable Blues Alley Jazz Club.
Our Instructors
Jill Hinckley has more than 50 years of experience as a potter and teacher and is the founder of Hinckley Pottery. Her first studio was located two short blocks up Wisconsin Avenue from our Blues Alley space. In that first studio, she developed her signature approach to teaching others how to use the potters wheel and how to approach the making of pottery. Many people and pots have transpired since then.
Form was Jill’s first love in pottery and beautifully thrown forms like the classical pottery of Japan, China, and Korea still inspire her. She strives for a simple, elegant line in her work and ultimately wants her pots to be used and enjoyed.
Because of the pandemic, Jill now works mostly from her home studio. She teaches two classes each week: Saturday am and early afternoon.
Jill Hinckley
Karen Bearman
Inspired by watching a potter at a Waterford VA fair, Karen Bearman began pottery lessons with Jill Hinckley in the early 70s, and apprenticed at the studio not long after. Later she began teaching at Hinckley Pottery, at independent schools, and at two universities. Karen is a member of the Clay Guild of the Eastern Shore and Main Street Gallery in Cambridge MD.
Living on the Eastern Shore provides her with a lovely commute to teach her Monday early and late evening classes. She shares her life with her avid sailor husband, an inherited toy poodle, and The Newton Brothers (three cats named Fig, Isaac, and Huey P).
Karen finds special pleasure in creating pieces to enhance the daily activities of people's lives, and in facilitating students' relationship with clay.
Andrew Francis
Andrew Francis’s love of pottery began as a teen watching the magic of his hometown potter as he worked. That passion was cemented in high school, developed at the local craft center and honed through college and in his travels to Japan and the UK.
Along the way, he absorbed techniques from well known potters like Malcolm Wright, Bea Duxbury and Paula Shalan. Andrew worked with teens and adults at various schools in Massachusetts before moving to DC where he discovered Jill’s infamous Saturday morning class and got hooked on Hinckley Pottery.
At the studio Andrew wears many hats -- as technician, kiln consultant, part of our glaze-making and glaze-firing crews and as an instructor. He teaches the Sunday morning and afternoon wheel classes and the evening handbuilding class.
Sharlene Samuel
One day in 2000 after walking past a neighborhood pottery studio several times, Sharlene Samuel finally walked in. As she remembers it, the first day she sat at the potter’s wheel and touched the clay, she felt a passion rise in her that continues to today.
Over the years as her interest grew, Sharlene became part of our workstudy program, learning what is involved in running a studio. That led her to managing our glaze-making for several years. The knowledge she gained prepared her for creating her own home studio in northwest DC from which she also works.
Sharlene loves every aspect of the pottery process from understanding the importance of a well made pot to creating a vessel that asserts its own beauty and character. She enjoys sharing her passion for the clay with her students on Wednesday nights.
Ann Riley
Ann Riley signed up for her first class at Hinckley Pottery in 1997. She had experimented with various art forms, music and dance in school, but discovered her true calling in clay.
After studying with Jill for more than 10 years, she started teaching and found she loved it as much as she loved throwing. In the summer of 2008 she ran Camp Mud and restarted kids’ pottery classes at the studio. She was soon striving to turn her adult students into pottery enthusiasts. Her wheel classes on Saturday afternoons and Tuesday nights draw a devoted following.
Always eager to explore new ideas in pottery, Ann has taken many workshops including from such notable potters as Mark Shapiro, Randy Johnston and Phil Rodgers. She is fascinated with the balance of form and function. When not teaching, Ann is likely to be throwing porcelain to her many musical playlists, or in her home office working as a political strategist for Washington area nonprofits.
Jeff Reneau
When in his early teens, Jeff Reneau first got his hands on clay and started sculpting — it was instant love. He got serious in Japan where, after a month of wedging clay, he got to throw a few pots. His parents lived near Warren MacKenzie, so Jeff would go home to visit parents and hang out with Warren (who would talk him into cleaning his pug machine).
Jeff first joined Hinckley Pottery in 2006. He soon left for the Big Apple, where he shared studio time with Parker Posey, then headed to Kolkata, India, where he threw in the shadow of Mother Teresa. After a few years in Helsinki, Finland, then some time in Tbilisi, Georgia — his job keeps him moving — he made his way back home to Hinckley Pottery.
With a penchant for exploring, Jeff found our glazing department, where he is always on the hunt for the next best glaze. He teaches on Friday nights. When he isn’t teaching, mixing a glaze, or traveling the world, he continues his quest for the perfect tea bowl.
Karna Robinson
Karna Robinson met pottery in an undergrad art requirement. The class was unlike any of the rigorous science courses she was taking. And she loved it. Fast forward to 2003, a different city, a job in research and a Hinckley Pottery birthday gift certificate. Karna fell in love all over again.
Quiet by nature, Karna enjoyed the whirlwind of Jill’s Saturday classes. She liked Jill's straight forward teaching style (and opinions!). Perfecting her skills, Karna assisted with Try It students and kids classes, and eventually assumed responsibility for our kids classes.
Balancing work and the things she loves — pottery, playing competitive women's flag football, coaching high school girls flag football and catering — can be a challenge. But you’re sure to find Karna at the studio on most Saturdays honing her skills and on Sundays teaching two kids classes and one teen class.
Susan Mordan
Susan took one high school pottery class and was hooked. After college, she looked for a place to explore her creative side and discovered Hinckley Pottery and much more — from lifelong friends to interesting people just passing through DC for a few years. The pottery and the people are what have kept her as part of this clay community for so long.
A stay-at-home mom for 20+ years, Susan’s ‘happy place’ was Hinckley Pottery. Now that her three young adult children have branched out, she has time to expand her passion from making pottery to teaching others how to make it — and she loves it! (She teaches the midday classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.)
Beyond the studio, Susan loves to be outside, hiking, biking, or spending hours in the garden. And she loves to experiment in the kitchen, trying new recipes and cooking for family and friends. When it’s time to unplug, you’ll find her with a book in hand or sitting at the beach.
Susan Weber
Studio Director (not an instructor!)
Susan Weber first discovered Hinckley Pottery through her daughters when they were in elementary school. That was in the early days of the studio when it was still on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown.
Getting involved with the studio herself happened much later. Hinckley Pottery then occupied the first floor and basement of a lovely old house in Foggy Bottom, didn’t have a telephone answering system and recruited new students by word of mouth. Jill taught all the classes.
Things have changed since then. Susan introduced computerized record keeping, telephone answering systems and advertising. A couple of moves later two electric kilns and a gas kiln were added. Today there are more teachers, more wheels, many more students and a beautiful new studio in a very old part of Washington DC.
Mary Reyner
Mary fell in love with pottery in college in the 70’s. While working full time, she looked for every opportunity to have her hands in clay. She spent time at the Glen Echo Pottery studio in the 80’s and at the Northwestern University pottery studio when she lived in Chicago in the early 90’s. Once she discovered the magic of Jill Hinckley’s Saturday morning class in 2001, she knew she’d found a home.
After many years as a workstudy, doing studio tasks like recycling clay and loading bisque kilns, she added teaching to her involvement with the studio. Mary teaches Thursday mornings and takes great pride and pleasure in watching her students become comfortable and successful at the art of pottery.
A native Washingtonian, Mary loves gardening as much as pottery and always enjoys sharing thoughts on growing flowers and vegetables with Jill.
Studio Amenities
Wheel Area
The first floor studio, shown here, is furnished with 15 electric wheels, two kick/electric combination wheels, and one treadle wheel. The second floor has 10 electric wheels and tables for hand-building, as well as resident spaces. The showroom is in the background. Part of the bisque library can be seen on the left.
Wedging Tables
This is the stoneware wedging area. (Porcelain is wedged in a separate area.) Above it are glaze sample tiles in our four clay bodies: Standard English porcelain, Highwater phoenix, Highwater orangestone and Laguna dark brown. Pugged studio clay is a combination of phoenix and orangestone.
Kiln Room
The kiln room houses three electric kilns — on the other side of the shelving above. These are used for bisque firing. Glaze firings happen in the Bailey shuttle gas kiln. The electric kilns are always either firing or cooling. The gas kiln is usually fired once a week, more often if there are enough pots.
Glaze Tables
Two 4x8 foot glaze tables provide ample space for glazing and for stashing glaze tubs and buckets underneath. Some glazes are perennial favorites (in big tubs) and always available. Others are in 5 gallon buckets. These are augmented periodically as our glaze-making crew explores new possibilities.