Dream takes shape

For more than four decades, Dawn Forest has been taking the shapeless, injecting it into form and, oftentimes, mixing in function. A Coeur d’Alene native, Forest is an artist of the ceramic mold variety, who began working with ceramics as a little girl through the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Now, she’s put that lifelong hobby into production and wants to share it with the public, opening the shop All Fired Up Ceramics and Crafts in Lake City’s midtown.

At the business, Forest and her boyfriend Kenny Stuart offer ceramic pieces that are ready to be painted and glazed, as well as how-to classes to make the molded items. At the store, customers can find greenware, which are yet-to-be-fired items, and bisque, which are once-fired pieces, and give them a personal touch by applying hand-painted acrylics or glazed finishes.

“I’ve been doing this since I was 5,” Forest said, adding that the recreational ceramics class she took as a kid served as her baby sitter. “I started doing ceramics as a kid and it’s always been my dream to own my own store.”

That opportunity came when a friend and art mentor, who ran a similar business called Mary’s Magic Oven from her Post Falls basement, decided to move away from the area. Forest purchased all of the pottery-making material, including two kilns and row upon row of customized molds, and moved into the Fourth Street building. All Fired Up opened its doors in early November.

“It was almost like a turnkey business. We just had to move everything out of her basement,” Forest said.

As for the finished items that line the two-room shop’s shelves, there are a plethora of pottery options for sale, such as figurines, animals, canisters, dishware and decorative vases, with prices from less than $1 to more than $25 apiece. The owners can match pretty much any customer request with one of their hundreds of molds, Stuart said.

Some of the more popular items include piggy banks, penguins, dishes and custom molds of baby handprints. China painters, those who practice the more intense, fine-tuned painting and firing procedure used commonly on porcelain, are welcome at the store as well.

“If you’re looking for one thing in particular, we can find about four to five things to match it,” he said. “There’s a niche for just about any collector in here.”

Kids will find a lot to like in the free ceramic-painting classes offered at the store, Forest said.

“It’s something kids can do, and we encourage parents to come in with their kids. We have everything you need to get started,” she said. “It’s very simple to learn how to do.”

Forest also is looking for an instructor to offer thrown pottery classes at the shop in the future.

“I’d love to have a teacher come in here and offer classes on clay molding,” she said.

For now, though, Forest hopes people stop by her store and discover a taste for ceramics, much like she did in her youth. “It’s just good to get everybody together around the table, sharing stories while they work,” she said.