ABOUT

The Story
Late in December 2014 a group of six potters met at a restaurant in Spokane, WA to talk about starting a community studio. Dissatisfied with the goals and offerings of the guild to which they all belonged at the time, they discussed their dream studio and community and found that they had many goals in common, despite their diverse art backgrounds and styles. They met every week for the next few months, donated their various skills, hours of labor, and their savings. At the end of March 2015 they opened the doors of Urban Art Co-op on N Monroe Street.

The Studio
Urban Art Co-op is a community pottery studio. We offer pottery classes to adults and children over 12. We host special events like date nights, and private parties. We invite artists expand our artistic horizons by teaching workshops in any media they are passionate about. Most importantly, we support individual artists by offering a place for them to practice the art of pottery in community with other artists of all skill levels.

The Dream
Though the artists is stereotypically a solitary figure, we believe that a strong and diverse community of artists promotes artistic growth. Our dream is to have a building that is home to several community studios equipped for artistic expression in many media. We would like to see painters, potters, welders, glass blowers, and wood carvers, among others, working next door to one another. All artistic processes share some traits, and what we learn from one another through collaborations and exploration will enrich our overall creativity. It will be a place where members of the larger community can come to experience art making in ways they would not normally have access to. It will also be a place to buy art directly from local artists. We hope to reach out to underprivileged youth in our neighborhood through scholarship and mentor programs.