Business focus: You decorate it at Glazed by Design
The owner of a new paint-it-yourself ceramics studio in Spokane Valley promises plenty of opportunity for creativity.
“I’m a teacher at heart … so you may get more than what you bargained for,” artist and Glazed by Design owner Laura Weinfurtner warns with a smile. “I want to help teach people how to take their art a little further.”
Her studio features shelves filled with white, unfinished pottery, and rows of tables and chairs readied with paints and brushes for customers to use. She offers individual painting, Pottery 101 and other classes, handprint creations, as well as girls’ night out and birthday packages.
And, of course, she takes walk-ins on a space-available basis, while catering to all ages.
Customers can select from about 300 different types of bisque pottery, from popular home décor items to more whimsical pieces. There are no hidden fees, either. The price listed for each unfinished pottery piece includes the cost of studio time, paints and kiln firing. Pottery prices begin at $8.
Glazed by Design is part of a growing industry of ceramic art studios catering to those who want to paint and decorate pottery pieces themselves. Customers leave their completed, and generally quite colorful, projects at studios to be glazed and fired and ready for pick up the following week.
Known as contemporary ceramics studios, they differ from traditional studios because owners buy unfinished pottery from suppliers rather than create their own pieces by pouring clay into molds.
This is Weinfurtner’s first shop, although she’s been involved in ceramics since she was 12 – owned molds and her first kiln at age 19 – and even helped fund her art education at Western Washington University by pouring clay into molds for ceramics studios in Bellingham.
Weinfurtner, who has lived in the Valley for the past decade, most recently worked for Michaels Arts and Crafts Store for nine years as an events coordinator. She has also taught art throughout the world, offering classes wherever her husband, now retired, was stationed in the Air Force.
Glazed by Design can accommodate 40 people and includes a secondary art room she calls “the red room” that is painted vibrantly and allows for birthdays and other gatherings to take place.
“I have three birthday parties already booked and a business (group) coming to play,” she says enthusiastically when asked about the response to her business. “I can’t wait to get here in the morning. I can’t wait for people to come.”