How the studio teaches
Six people, one bench, three hours
The room is small on purpose. With six people the tutor can correct a grip or a hydration by hand. The session is long enough to make something, clean it, and write down what to practise before the next week.
Why the bench is small
Six is the number that fits the timber bench and the six induction rings. It is also the number at which a tutor can still put a hand on a coil or a dough and change it, instead of describing the change from the end of the room. Beyond six, people wait for the kiln shelf, the mixer, or a pair of cramps. We would rather keep the waiting out of the evening.
The same six people stay together for the whole course. You learn the pace of the others, and the tutor learns which wrist tires and which loaf needs a tighter shape. Substitutes break that. If you must miss a session, we use the open bench rather than folding a stranger into week four.
A small bench also means the materials can be decent. Clay is weighed for six. Timber is chosen in sections we can carry up eighteen steps. The indigo vat is a barrel we can keep on the landing. That is the studio we can actually run in one shophouse room.
How a session is built
Twenty minutes of demonstration
The tutor shows the next move at the bench, once, slowly, with the same tools you will use. Questions come during the demo. Then the tools are passed along and the talking drops.
A long working stretch
Most of the three hours is making. The tutor moves around the six places and stops where a wall is thinning or a fold is tight. You may talk. You may also work quietly. Both are normal here.
A second stretch after a short pause
After a cup of water and a look at the clock, you return to the same piece. The pause is brief. The point is to see the work again with a slightly cooler head, then finish the step that session promised.
Clean-down, then ten minutes of notes
Washing boards, oiling planes, feeding the vat and sweeping clay are part of the craft, so they sit inside the session. The last ten minutes are notes for the week between sessions: hydration, grit, rest times, what to practise at the kitchen table.
Materials and where they come from
Clay comes from a Singapore supplier who will sell you the same grogged stoneware we use. We put that name on the materials list you take home. Timber comes from a Kranji yard in sections we can get up the stairs; offcuts from one course become practise blocks for the next. Flour is milled in the region, and we keep a starter that has already learnt this weather.
The indigo vat is maintained in the studio. It has good weeks and thin weeks. When the reduction slips we say so, and the Sunday course dips longer rather than pretending the blue is the same every month. Ink, paper, thread and board are bought in town in quantities six people can finish.
We repair tools and reuse offcuts as a matter of habit. A cracked batt gets trimmed. A short offcut becomes a lid rest. Cloth that dyed unevenly becomes a sample. That is how a one-room studio keeps going without a store cupboard the size of a shop.
Mistakes
Cracked handles, flat loaves and blotted letters are scheduled into the course. A handle that hairlines in the bisque is discussed at the next session, then wrapped or remade. A loaf that opens on the side is sliced so you can see the crumb, then the next dough is tightened. A blot sits in the folder beside a cleaner page. We would rather you meet those failures here, with the tutor at the bench, than meet them alone in week seven at home. The course length is short, so there is still time to make a second piece after the first one teaches you something.
Access and safety
The studio is a second-floor walk-up with eighteen steps and no lift. That is the building. If the stairs are a problem, say so when you write. Filter Coffee Fundamentals and Brush Lettering and Calligraphy can be taught on the ground floor of the same shophouse by arrangement, using a table we set for those two courses only. Ceramics, joinery, dye, bread, ferments and binding need the kiln, the vat, the oven or the tool wall, so they stay upstairs.
Power tools are used only after a short induction on the first joinery session that needs them. You may decline the machine and stay with the hand tools. Kitchen courses carry an allergen list on request; write before you pay the deposit if sesame, gluten, chilli, garlic or nuts are a problem. Closed shoes for joinery and ceramics. Hair tied for the kitchen bench. We will stop a session if a tool or a heat source is being used badly.
Fire nights for the kiln are posted on the door. The landing gets warm. Neighbours are told. If you are sensitive to that heat, skip the glaze-collection evening and we will set your pieces aside for the Saturday open bench.
About Skillsupgradesg
Skillsupgradesg opened in 2026 in this one room. One kiln, one long bench, one oven, one vat. There are no branches. The name is the studio’s name, and it stays that way on paper, on the door and on this site.
Skillsupgradesg is an independent studio. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or funded through any government agency or national training scheme.
If you want to see the space before you hold a seat, Saturday afternoons from 13:30 to 16:00 are the usual window. Telephone +65 6291 4738 or write to [email protected]. We will say if the room is in the middle of a firing or a bake, and offer the next hour that is quiet.