If you've spent any time in the studio, there's a good chance you've already picked up a tip or two from Selby — whether it's a small adjustment to how you're holding your hands at the wheel, or a nudge to slow down and really look at the shape you're pulling up. As Head Instructor at The Old Bank, he teaches wheel throwing at every level, from complete beginners through to advanced potters refining technique, and he's the one behind the curriculum that shapes our courses. You'll also find his own work in the gallery — his ramen bowls and thrown vases have become something of a signature. Here's a bit more about the journey that got him here.
From the Wirral to the Wheel
Selby's introduction to ceramics came through an apprenticeship at a studio pottery on the Wirral. It's not the route most people associate with becoming a potter — no art school, no gentle introduction — but a grounding in producing domestic studio pottery at scale, where speed, consistency and repetition mattered just as much as creativity. It's where he learned the practical backbone of the craft: repetition throwing, glazing pots in real volume, and the unglamorous but essential skill of packing a kiln properly. Those are still the skills he leans on today, decades on.
There's a detail he still talks about from those early days: preparing hundreds of balls of clay by hand for the production potters, long before a pug mill made that job obsolete. It's the kind of grounding that sticks with you — a reminder that good pottery is built on discipline and repetition as much as on inspiration.
Finding His Own Style
After the apprenticeship, Selby went on to study Multi-Disciplinary Design in Stoke-on-Trent — about as close to the historic heart of British ceramics as you can get. It was here that he started developing a style of his own, while keeping hold of the functional, hands-on skills he'd built in the studio. That combination — technical grounding paired with a genuine design sensibility — has shaped his work ever since.
Following graduation, he opened his first studio pottery in Cambridgeshire, producing functional thrown stoneware. It was here, too, that teaching first found him. What started as a natural extension of running his own studio turned into something he clearly loved — he began teaching pottery to community groups, schools and colleges, and it became as much a part of his practice as the pots themselves.
Wheel, Form, and the Art of Turning
Selby's own work is thrown entirely on the wheel, and while throwing gets most of the attention, it's turning where he really comes alive. He describes it as a chance to "engineer" a pot — refining and sharpening a form after it's come off the wheel, until the shape says exactly what he wants it to say. It's a meticulous, considered stage of the process, and it's a big part of why his work is often described as contemporary and functional: pieces that are clearly made to be used, but with a real eye for shape and form behind them. His ramen bowls and thrown vases, both on display in the gallery, are good examples — distinctive, considered forms that give away just how much attention goes in after the piece leaves the wheel.
Teaching as Practice, Not Just a Sideline
What comes through most clearly in Selby's story is that teaching isn't something bolted on to his own practice — it's part of it. Years of sharing his knowledge with community groups, schools and colleges have given him a real feel for how to meet people wherever they're starting from, whether that's someone picking up clay for the very first time or someone refining technique they've had for years.
He still describes the same passion for pottery now as when he was rolling clay by hand for the production line all those years ago — and that passion carries straight through into how he teaches, and into the curriculum he's built for The Old Bank. If you get the chance to learn from him in the studio, take it — and if you'd like to see where his own practice has landed, his ramen bowls and thrown vases are on display in the gallery.