I was an absolute cynic about going to a place to paint and decorate your own pottery but I was…read morecompletely out of ideas for a Christmas gift. I figured if taking a 2 year old would make it a little less terrible since she was the one doing the decorating. Not being the artsy type I was betting on getting a good dinner next door at Dickey's and then spend a few seconds getting some paint spilled onto a bowl, then mission Christmas gift would be complete!
I have to admit that I was surprised:
a) how much fun it was
b) how much stuff they had
c) how busy they were
d) how friendly the employees were about helping a clueless guy (me)
They has glass, silver, and a few types of ceramics that you can paint, mold, fuse, etc. If I had to guess I would say that they have maybe 650 different pieces that you can work on from 2' platters down to salt & pepper shakers. You basically pick a blank piece and try to grab a place at a table, then squirt out some of the 100 different colors onto a tile. They have brushes, stencils, sponges, tape, x-acto blades, and anything else that you might think to use. Then you (or the two year old whose is actually doing the painting) goes to town, pay for your item, then wait a few days for them to fire it.
The staff was extremely friendly in telling me what I needed to do and offered suggestions on color selection. The business is pretty nice on the inside with Pier One type furniture (they also had hot chocolate and gourmet cookies for you to snack while we were there). Among the other customers that were painting while we were there was a frat guy painting a heart box for a girl friend, people very young to very old painting random things, a college aged chick with a piece that she must have spent days on, and a guy as clueless as me trying to make something pretty. It was an interesting cross section of Lubbock and made me think that Art Avenue will probably last a while. There were also some pieces around the entrance that were for sale (and some of them looked like stuff you would find at a museum shop).
I really enjoyed myself and would definitely recommend it to anybody wanting to have a unique outing in the Hub City