Paint-your-own pottery studios create masterpieces
By This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it | Corridor Living Staff Writer
Originally published Winter 2007/2008

      

Deidre Lee, owner of Color Me Mine, (right) helps students at the Silver Spring studio, which offers 300 pieces and 60 different colors of paint. Photo by Christopher Myers.

     Each morning, Bonnie Rechsteiner drinks her coffee from a mug that was made by her grandchildren. 
     Rechsteiner, a Howard County resident, is a repeat customer at the Pottery Stop, a paint-your-own pottery studio in Columbia. Each time she visits with one of her three grandchildren in tow. 
     The experience unleashes their artistic side — from choosing and mixing colors to designing patterns and painting. The studio, splashed with color, stencil designs and paintbrushes, is an artist’s delight. 
     Rechsteiner’s china cabinet is full of pottery such as animals, seasonal items, plates and mugs — each piece a reminder of her grandchildren at different times in their lives.
 On this visit Rechsteiner and her 10-year-old granddaughter, Violet Jayne, are making vases. 
     “She loves to come here, it’s one of our favorite places to go together,” she said. “It’s an easy way to have fun and you don’t have to be good at art.”
     In fact, people of all ages are brushing up on their painting skills as paint-your-own pottery stores continue to spread across the Baltimore-Washington Corridor.
     “Paint-your-own pottery has kept the surprise, magic and life of pottery alive,” said Deidre Lee, owner of Color Me Mine, a pottery studio in Silver Spring. “It’s a way for people to communicate and relate.”
     Color Me Mine is a franchise that started 15 years ago in California. Lee opened the first Montgomery County location in 2004. The studio has 300 pottery items and more than 60 colors to choose from. Customers can paint anything from picture frames and figurines to plates and seasonal decorations.
     Once a piece is painted, the staff covers the pottery with a clear glaze that protects the paint and makes the item food safe.
The piece is then fired in the kiln, a process which takes eight hours followed by 12 hours to cool.
     The studio receives customers primarily by word of mouth, said Lee, adding that business has grown at least 50 percent since its inception, with peak times in the summer and holiday season.
     “I always say pottery is like someone’s favorite restaurant,” she said. “We consider this an art and entertainment concept.”
     Pottery studios are about people finding a creative outlet, added Lisa Feltz, owner of the Pottery Stop. The Columbia store, open since 2006, has a selection of 200 pottery items, 80 colors and a variety of specialty glazes.
     “It’s the women’s version of do it yourself,” she said. “It’s the equivalent of an amusement park … I want people to have that therapeutic feeling and to use a lot of creativity.”
     Pottery studios have become a popular choice for first dates, children’s birthday parties, bridal showers, girls’ night out and grandparents and grandchildren outings.  
One- to two-hour adult, teenager and children’s workshops are held monthly in addition to clay, bead, fabric and tie dye classes in the spring and summer seasons at Color Me Mine.
     The Silver Spring shop also holds a “Mommy and Me” class the second Saturday of every month where mothers and their little ones participate in “Paint Me a Story,” a class that follows a paint by
story theme.
      “Some adults are intimidated because we tend to shut down our creative forces as we get older so this is good for them,” said Lee. “Pottery is great because by the second and third time people are doing really amazing things.”
     As a way of recognizing her customer’s fine art work, Lee has named one side of her studio the “Customer Perfection Wall,” where she displays pictures of impressive pottery pieces.
     Today, more people want to design and make their own things, said Lee. Popular items are family platters, holiday and wedding ornaments as well as baby footprint and handprint items.
     “It’s not like going to Hecht’s and buying a gift everyone else has,” Feltz said. 
     And the price is right. A day spent at a pottery studio costs anywhere from $12 to $18 for kids and $15 to $25 for adults.
     The experience is a perfect opportunity for male and female bonding, said Feltz, a 37-year-old Carroll County resident, who opened her first pottery store in Frederick in 1999 before selling it six years later.
     “It’s one of the few things men and women can do together and enjoy at any age,” she said. “Men come in kicking and screaming but almost every other time it’s the woman waiting on the man to leave.”

Color Me Mine, 823 Ellsworth Drive, Silver Spring, Md., 301.565.5105,
www.silverspring.colormemine.com

The Pottery Stop, 9400 Snowden River Parkway, Columbia, Md., 410.309.6500
www.thepotterystop.com