OUR SCHOOL
The Hand Crafted Studio is a welcoming place for people of all abilities to come to create and share knowledge in working with clay. Tanya has been working with clay for over 10 years and has been teaching classes for most of those.
About Tanya
Tanya Boyd was born on the Mornington Peninsula in 1973. Living close to the water established her love of the outdoors and nature. After meeting her husband in the early 90’s, he introduced her to bird watching and the country town of Bright in the Victorian High Country. Throughout the years nature and the Victorian High Country has heavily influenced Tanya’s ceramic practice.
In 2009 Tanya studied at Chisholm Tafe in Dandenong, Victoria for her Diploma of Ceramic Design. While there, Tanya discovered her creative voice under the guidance of her tutor Judith Roberts. Through her studies, she was introduced to Greyson Perry's and Gerry Wedd's illustrative works and the William Morris quote “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” This quote has been the inspiration of many of Tanya’s pieces which have been sold nationally and internationally.
Tanya went on to complete her Advanced Diploma in Creative Product Design. It was in the environment of continual experimentation and development that she learnt the process for printing on clay. This became her major study focus where she made her own decals from photos she had taken in the Victorian High Country. The results from this work was placed in the end of year exhibition and was awarded the Clayworks prize by Professor Neville French.
While studying her Advanced Diploma, Tanya was approached to teach at a local community centre. This is where her passion for teaching was born. To further her teaching capabilities Tanya did an Integration/Teachers Aide course through Monash University. Tanya worked at two community centres for 4 years and in that time has had the joy of teaching clay hand building and wheel throwing to adults and children including those with special needs. During this time Tanya decided to open and run her own pottery studio, this led to Tanya opening The Hand Crafted Studio in Mordialloc in 2019 which caters to the learning of hand building and wheel thrown pottery.
From time to time Tanya schedules in workshops for other niche creative classes.
While teaching has become Tanya’s main focus, her love of nature has continued and has many new creative projects in the making.