Origin story
When things were beginning to open up post-COVID in 2021, I decided I wanted to reconnect with pottery as a hobby. Like so many of us, I wanted to experience life in community with others after a long duration of isolation. I also wanted to do something tactile with my hands and utilize pottery as a way of advancing my mindfulness journey. I began to look at studios around me and found that classes were always sold out and memberships had very long waitlists, sometimes up to a year!
I poked around and learned very quickly that:
there are not enough supply of seats in studios to accommodate the demand
because memberships were always full, folks who are eligible for memberships continue to take classes, and because classes favor prior students, only a few spots open up to the broader public which fill up very quickly.
current semester-based class structure felt rigid and inflexible (3 month upfront financial and weekly time commitment, not easy to make up missed classes..)
Hey Clay is born
I am an amateur potter and the idea for Hey Clay largely stemmed from wanting to solve some of the problems I experienced in my own journey in breaking into the pottery world in the city. I don't claim there is a better way of running a studio but I do believe there is a different way. Click here to learn about Hey Clay’s foundational principles.