Denice Simons first learned the satisfaction that can come from plunging one’s hands into moist, soft clay when she was in high school, then left her craft for 10 years. Eventually, she was living in Englewood and started attending ceramics night classes.

“I learned a lot there,” she says, adding that she next enrolled in Arapahoe Community College’s large, well-equipped ceramics program for additional training.

About six years ago, she joined the Colorado Potters Guild, a co-op formed in 1964 by a group of potters who were trained, but needed a place to work. It functions in an old creamery building on South Pearl Street, providing studio space, kilns and resources for its 40 members.

She and many other guild potters will join forces for an annual spring show and sale April 30 to May 2 at First Plymouth Congregational Church. This sale, also held in November, affords an opportunity for buyers to choose from varied works by accomplished craftsmen, ranging from mugs and bowls to casseroles, pitchers, platters and other items for the table, plus sculptures and in Simon’s case, items for the garden: planters, in particular.

She also makes feeders and bird baths, but says her most recent pedestals and bird baths did not work out well, so she has none for this show.

She creates planters from both red and white stoneware clay and uses several different glazes.

Some red clay pieces are simply decorated with iron oxide on the raw clay. There is a learning curve for the public in accepting the unglazed pots, Simons says.

A home studio and electric kiln start Simon’s works on their way. She then carries them to the Potters Guild Studio for final high temperature firing in a gas kiln. Members cooperate on firings, which require careful observation over a long period.

While she has pieces in a few places such as Birdsall’s garden shop on South Broadway in Denver, most of her work sells at the guild’s two yearly sales.

“Then my cupboard is bare and I start over!”

She prefers not to accept commissions because it’s too hard to match an image that’s in someone else’s head. She hopes they will find something they like in the collection she offers.

Simons, a Littleton resident since 2002, lived in Englewood for many years and her children attended Englewood schools, graduating from Englewood High School, where her daughter enjoyed ceramics classes.

If you go:

The Denver Potters Guild Spring Show and Sale is at First Plymouth Congregational Church, 3501 S. Colorado Blvd., at East Hampden Avenue, Englewood. Hours: 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday, April 30; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, May 1; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 2.

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