Writer / Natalie Platt Photography Provided by Photogenic by Kendall
When Myndie Everling, the owner of Oh Slip Ceramics, looks back at her first ceramics classes at Western High School, she remembers teaching groups of five or six students. One class had only two.
Now, Everling has 15 to 20 students in many of her classes, sometimes stacking sections so more students can get a spot. One of her students is heading to the University of Michigan next year and looking into its art program.
That steady interest in ceramics is part of the reason she opened Oh Slip Ceramics in Kokomo. The studio officially opened July 1 after holding kids camps in June, giving people outside the school system a place to work with clay, try pottery painting or spend a few hours making something with their hands.
The business is family-run, and its personality is a little different from a traditional pottery studio. Oh Slip Ceramics specializes in vintage-inspired bisque and greenware, including pieces made from vintage molds, while offering wheel throwing, handbuilding and other ceramic projects. The studio also hosts workshops that change with the season. Recent offerings have included plant bingo and planter painting, hand-built leaf bowls and wheel-throwing workshops. Upcoming projects include textured pumpkins and a clay ghost for Kids Day.
Everling has been teaching for 16 years, first spending eight years in elementary education at Northwestern before moving to Western, where she has taught ceramics for the past eight years. Her interest in clay goes back even further, to her own high school experience at Taylor High School.
“I had a teacher, Maryanne Dishon there that was a ceramics teacher, and she made me love ceramics,” she says. “When I started teaching in the elementary, I wanted to have my kids get the experience with clay, because it’s something that’s not offered everywhere.”
Everling continued taking ceramics classes in Indianapolis while she was teaching, building up her knowledge of different techniques and bringing what she learned back to her students. Eventually, ceramics became the main focus of what she taught at Western.
Now she is seeing many of those same students and their families outside the school setting.
At Oh Slip Ceramics, the age range is broad. Older women have been drawn to greenware and slip casting, while adults in their 30s and 40s tend to gravitate toward the pottery wheel. Younger children often come in for painting and kids projects. Grandparents bring grandchildren.
Some customers have not touched clay since they were teenagers.
“I have a couple women who say they haven’t touched clay in years and say I don’t know if I can do this,” she says. “I tell them it’s kind of like riding a bicycle. Once you get on there, it is muscle memory.”
The studio has been busy building out ways for people to return, rather than simply come in for a single class. Its Studio Insider membership is $60 a month and includes unlimited studio time, discounts on workshops and camps and access to community events. The Clay Lab gives people open studio time for handbuilding and wheel practice. For $25 a session, it includes a pound of clay, access to wheels and pottery tools, along with glazing and firing.
Kids Day is held on the second Saturday of every month, with a different clay project each time. Recent projects have included a silly pencil magnet, while the September session will have children making clay ghosts. Adult wheel-throwing workshops are offered regularly, with beginners welcome. Ceramic painting is offered every day.
For the Everlings, that variety matters because not everyone comes to ceramics for the same reason. Some want to learn the wheel. Some want to make something they can take home. Some are rediscovering a hobby they had forgotten about.
The larger goal is to make the studio a place people return to and for it to become a community.
Oh Slip Ceramics is located at 417 E. Center Road in Kokomo. The studio is open Tuesday through Saturday, with hours varying by day. More information about classes, memberships, open studio time and upcoming events is available through ohslipceramics.net.
