Ceramics School is a ceramic-centric community art school and artist residency program located in Hamtramck, MI – an extraordinary two square mile city within the city of Detroit. Offering a safe, supportive, critical, and creative platform; Ceramics School enables accessible contemporary art education via classes, studio access, and a spectrum of public programing.
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Ceramics School began as a six week pop-up this past summer at Popps Packing, an artist residency and gallery space down the street from us. We held four 6 week long classes and they all filled before the school even existed. Our programming consisted of Wheel Throwing (with borrowed wheels), Hand Building, Advanced Ceramics, Youth Drop-in classes, a wood kiln firing, a public visiting artist lecture, Free Friday events where we welcomed the public into the studio, and an exhibition showcasing all of the amazing things that were made. The experience was a huge success and it was immediately clear that we needed to build a permanent home for Ceramics School.
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Ceramics School’s permanent home will be located in the storefront attached to our house at 2692 Carpenter Ave Hamtramck, MI. The storefront housed our personal art studios until this fall when we rezoned the property to join Hamtramck’s Central Business District, allowing us to have Ceramics School’s classes, studio access and public programing in the space. The first floor apartment of the house will host local, national and international resident artists who will work in the studio alongside our students. But before any of that can happen, we need to do some serious work to make the storefront a safe, functional and welcoming space for our students and the community. The funds we raise with your help through this fundraiser will make all of this possible!
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We need to renovate our storefront and purchase equipment so we can start Ceramics School back up as soon as possible. The things that we need before we can open are outlined in the budget below. After Kickstarter fees and producing the rewards we will be able to keep an estimated 80% of what we raise, so we would love to make over our target amount!
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We so appreciate any support you can offer in our renovation and founding of Ceramic School’s brick and mortar. To thank you for your support we have some very~cool rewards that we hope you love. : ^ )
BUMPER STICKERS
SHIRTS *both come in both color options
TIE-DYE HATS
SWEATSHIRTS
CUPS *Made by Henry JH Crissman, Ceramics School co-founder
VASES *Made by Henry JH Crissman, Ceramics School co-founder
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Follow our progress on Instagram |@ceramicsschool
This is our first time starting a business so we are not sure how long it will take to do the renovations but we will be working as hard as we can until we are able to open! We have a lot of support in the community and great contractors to help us do the work.
For the rewards- We know who is printing all of our bumper stickers, shirts and sweatshirts so everything is ready for production as soon as the fundraiser is complete. Our place specific rewards will be redeemable as soon as Ceramics School opens.