![]() By 1990, there were only a couple of thousand of traditional studios left in the United States, while the contemporary studio concept started by Color Me Mine began gaining in popularity. We’d fire it and they’d come back and pick it up.’ And that was the birth of the contemporary ceramics studio as opposed to the traditional ceramics studio,” says Mooslin. ![]() So they said ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a business for families that didn’t require any talent, where we would supply them all of the blank bisque? They could pick whatever piece they want from figurines to dishes, to children’s items to house ware items, and they could paint it any way they want. But when they got to the bisque stage, when all they had to do was decorate them with under glazes, it was so much fun and no matter what they did it came out looking beautiful. They found it a little bit daunting it took some talent to do. Mooslin picks up the story: “They went to one of these traditional studios and made them from scratch. How the traditional ceramic studio evolved into a more contemporary concept is largely due to Robin Monroe and Josh Culver, a married couple who wanted to make their own ceramic wall sconces for their home. “In the fifties and sixties, it became somewhat of a fad with people forming clubs,” he adds. ![]() Many people, including his own grandparents, had kilns in their garages. According to Mooslin, over the first half of the century, there were tens of thousands of traditional ceramic studios throughout the country where people would get to together for classes and workshops. The first use of functional pottery vessels for storing water and food is thought to be around 9000 or 10,000 BC.Ĭeramic making became hugely popular in the United States during the early years of the 20th century, as successive waves of immigrant artisans brought their ceramic making skills to these shores. ![]() Almost 10,000 years later, as settled communities were established, tiles were manufactured in Mesopotamia and India. As early as 24,000 BC, animal and human figurines were made from clay and other materials, and then fired in kilns partially dug into the ground. Once humans discovered that clay could be dug up and formed into objects by first mixing it with water and then firing it, an industry was born. Our motto is: ‘No Talent – No Problem,’ and our byline is: ‘The Art of Having Fun.’ In a Color Me Mine studio, everyone’s painting something different, but everyone’s talking and laughing and there’s that family bonding, combining a communal activity with individual expression – and that’s our mission.”Ĭolor Me Mine may have been created in 1991, but ceramics, itself, is one of the most ancient crafts on the planet. The mission is to make the creative process of ceramic painting affordable, fun, and accessible to everyone. “We’re a family entertainment/enrichment concept and ceramics is really just a vehicle. So, according to this company COO, that is why the mission of the Color Me Mine national chain has less to do with artistic talent and much more to do with “family bonding, family entertainment, and family enrichment,” Mooslin says. “Now what is that worth?” he asks rhetorically. And underneath, I just put in my own writing: ‘Your Grandaddy loves you this much!’” Years later, Mooslin was reminded of the incident when he noticed that his grandson had packed that same soccer ball candy jar to take with him to college. Then I left an empty white space and I did a stick figure of an old man with a few hairs on his head, a big nose, and his hands sticking way out. “It was easy enough to paint,” he says, “because it was already defined with these little hexagon shapes that I could paint black where they needed to be. Mike Mooslin, President of Color Me Mine, the market leader in the paint-your-own-pottery (PYOP) industry, fondly remembers the time when, admittedly without much artistic talent, he made a ceramic gift for his ten year-old grandson at a Color Me Mine studio – a soccer ball candy jar. Bringing families back togetherīusiness View Magazine profiles Color Me Mine Enterprises Inc., the market leader in the paint-your-ownpottery (PYOP) industry.
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