Still Life Ceramics is now open in Scott’s Addition, offering wheel-throwing and hand-building classes, studio rentals, and pottery workshops.
Jess Gary was feeling restless in New York. The creative director and graphic designer was looking for something meaningful when she signed up for a pottery class on a whim. Her spontaneous decision quickly turned into a life-changing passion.
“I was immediately hooked,” Gary says. She fell in love with both the medium and the creative process, one that allows her to get her hands dirty and zone out everything else. But most of all, she loved the company of the artistic community around her.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and like many others she felt isolated in the city. “One of the silver linings is that my job went remote,” she says.
Gary began searching for a new place to live that could offer her a better quality of life, had a vibrant arts scene and was in close proximity to her family. Richmond checked all the boxes.
“When I was researching living here, I read about what an amazing town it was for pottery,” she says. “And it really is — there are so many incredible neighborhood studios here, like Hand/Thrown, Rosewood [Pottery Studio] and 43rd Street [Studios].”
The studios, however, were in such high demand, that Gary found herself on long waiting lists to get in. She tried building a pottery studio out of her house, but she was missing that community connection, especially being in a new town. So, in June, Gary opened Still Life Ceramics at 1600 Altamont Ave. in Scott’s Addition. The Richmond studio joins a collective of artist-run pottery spaces that are each locally owned and operated under the Still Life Ceramics brand. The RVA location is the fourth outpost, joining two locations in Los Angeles and one in Detroit.
“Pottery can be a really expensive hobby — you need wheels and kilns and a lot of space,” she says. “So, people have naturally learned to share spaces, and it’s fostered this really generous environment.”
Still Life Ceramics offers beginner and intermediate wheel-throwing and hand-building classes. Students can even learn to throw a bowl in an hour during the “Bowl in One” class. Studio rentals are available for private events. There are four-week pottery programs that allow participants to learn the entire process, from raw clay to a finished glazed piece.
“I’m always struck, when I teach people who have never touched clay before, [by] how intuitive and instinctual it is,” Gary says. “Wheel work takes a lot of practice and is a real skill, but humans have been working with clay for thousands of years across every culture. It’s inherent to the human experience.”
For artists who already have experience working with clay and are on the hunt for a studio to use, Still Life offers memberships starting at $125 per month. An additional perk of being a member is that there is 24/7 access to the facility.
Designed to be a venue that both enhances the local ceramic arts scene and teaches hobbyists and budding artists the craft, the studio offers a rotating selection of workshops in a variety of subjects and techniques, in addition to its classes.
Gary encourages everyone to give pottery a spin. “Pottery breaks down the barriers between art and craft,” she says. “I love thinking about functional objects as art just as much as a painting.”
