Keep Going

The way that it came to pass was that I was working in my home studio and needed indoor space. Frankly, my ceramic studio was an outdoor environment that was subject to all the elements and the insects and whatever else, and I began pursuing a big quest to find an indoor space that I could work in.
And working with other people—or facilitating it for other people—became actually like a… it was sort of like a necessity for me more than something I pursued. I started with our first unit here with the idea of having my own personal studio.
I think a lot of artists like their personal space. Most artists are introverted people and very much enjoy being in solitude while they’re working. And the membership here started as a means to an end, really. I invited some artists that I didn’t mind being around, basically, and was just like: Do you want to co-rent this space? You guys are welcome to use my equipment, and I’ll fire your stuff in the kiln, and all of that stuff.
And then, when the other unit opened up—which had better windows and all of that other stuff—and I wanted to expand into that because I just knew that it was going to be better visuals for working with the public and being able to be seen by them, as well as just a bigger, brighter space. Because these are all shotgun units, so they don’t have the daylight that you would like to see in them.
You have to poke a bunch of holes in the ceiling for lots of money to get skylights and stuff like that.
And then what kind of—how that sort of pivoted—was then, well, let’s just expand the membership thing to help to pay for this space, and then I’ll go hide in my hobbit hole, and everybody gets a great studio, and then I’ll get my little private studio, you know, off to the side.
And here we are, three and a quarter units later.
And the need continues to slowly sort of present itself. Everybody needs a place to be creative. And what has become evident is that when you get creative people together in a space—when you have the right elements together—the sum is greater than its parts, and everybody’s sort of vibing off of each other. And that’s a really special thing.