The Pottery Caffe is a business that thrives off artists as well as the less artistically prone.
Jacqueline Hardy, the owner and an artist at the Pottery Caffe, said she has always had a passion for painting pottery.
Now she is sharing her passion for painting pottery with the Boulder community through her business.
“I want people to feel comfortable when they come here. Not intimidated,” Hardy said. “So many people come in here and say ‘I’m not an artist,’ but everyone has some creative juice and I like to bring that out.”
The Pottery Caffe, “Where Everyone’s an Artist,” is a colorful, paint-your-own pottery and bead studio with an espresso bar. The store is festooned with local artists’ works and many bright sample pieces illustrating the different painting techniques available to customers.
There are stencils, stamps, idea books and many different glazes to choose from as well as many different pottery shapes to paint. Don’t be dismayed if the store doesn’t have the football, dragon or cat dish shaped pottery for you to paint, they can order any specific pottery piece you desire.
Since the glazes are dishwasher safe, Hardy said the most popular items are the mugs and plates. People seem to like functional items that they can use everyday.
Hardy tries to buy products for the Pottery Caffe from local sources. Some of the pottery is made locally, Boulder artists can sell their work through the store, and the espresso is organic and locally grown.
“Pottery Caffe is your community studio,” according to the business’s Web site. “We are pretty green here.”
Deciding to take a closer look at the Pottery Caffe, a group of friends and I went out to paint and relax after a week full of studying for midterms.
The studio assistant showed us tiles with different layers of paint and different painting techniques we could use. She brought us some brushes and showed us where the colors, stencils, stamps and sponges were so that we could get started.
Four hours later, sitting in silent concentration, we had painted a small oil vase with black and white flowers over a dark purple background, a bowl with red fish in an underwater scene, a green flower pot with pink flowers and a plate adorned with a medieval sword and helmet.
For a group of friends that usually go see movies together or play Frisbee, going to the Pottery Caffe was definitely something new to do. Masterpieces or not, we had fun making them and we will have functional mementos from the evening we can use everyday.
Contact Campus Press staff writer Ashley Oldland at ashley.oldland@thecampuspress.com.
