HandWerks
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Hand made pottery, beautiful in form and function. For your table, garden, and home. It's romantic, but it's a conceit of the "sensible". Change careers. Pottery.
It can't be distilled to just one art or medium; it's a deep need to create, and still be able to support those other habits, like eating, and sleeping indoors. The Bohemian, the hipster artist, the starving artist - the archetype marginalizes creatives as somehow superfluous, or not quite contributing to society. History and sociology would disagree. What's a cramped cube-worker and ungratified a
02/25/2026
I'm teaching throwing and handbuilding in MARCH. Register for classes at https://studioterratactile.com/classes/class-sign-up/
02/13/2026
01/28/2026
Classes are starting next week!
10/20/2025
I'm teaching the Clay Dates at CAE on Oct 25 and Nov. 22. Bring your partner or a friend and play in the clay for an evening. No experience required!
Drinks provided, and you get to take home what you make!
Clay Dates • Center for the Arts Evergreen ONLINE REGISTRATION CLOSES 24 HOURS BEFORE THE START OF A SESSION. Please call the front desk at 303.674.0056 if you are within this window to enquire about registration availability. SCROLL DOWN FOR A LIST OF SESSIONS NOW ENROLLING. Listings are typically updated on a quarterly basis. Clay Dates...
04/29/2024
I will have pottery in this sale; come by to see all the beautiful work coming out of the ACAG community!
Our Opening Reception is on Friday!
04/29/2024
I'll have pottery in this sale; come by to see all the great work coming out of the ACAG community.
Our Opening Reception is on Friday!
12/09/2023
Kiln opening!
12/05/2023
I just had a sneak peak inside the new space for the Denver Makers Market at The Orchard Town Center.
I'm excited.
The promoters are setting up some impressive festive décor, a bar for serving cocktails and mocktails to shoppers, lots of music, and space for classes and demonstrations.
I'll be there the weekend of December 15-17.
The Orchard Town Center is Westminster's shopping district, featuring restaurants, specialty shops, and Santa! Come for the day and finish your holiday shopping.
12/04/2023
Speaking of ornaments...
One of my favorite parts about making them is when folx come into my booth and share that they are buying ornaments for family and friends as part of their holiday traditions - they always get something special every year.
Whether they're kept just for the Winter Holidays or hung year-round, my ornaments make great stocking stuffers or small gifts for co-workers. And the price is nice, starting at $12 each for most of them.
I'm bringing them to every December show, or let me know what you love and I'll ship them to you.
In other Holiday Shopping News -
I just signed a contract for space at the Denver Maker's Market store in the Orchard Town Center, for December 15, 16, and 17.
Yes, it's the same shopping center as Create Marketplace, but down the block a bit at the corner of 146th and Orchard Parkway.
The big difference is that I'll be there all weekend, helping folx pick out the perfect unique gifts. And the best part is that I'm still making more pottery for this show.
12/04/2023
This week's "Where's Melanie?" -
I'll be showing at the Arvada Ceramic Arts Guild Holiday Sale this weekend. The location is Next Step Clay at 4501 W. 38th Ave, Denver 80212.
Bringing all the mugs and bowls, and also the wall pockets - but hoping that you come for the Holiday Ornaments! I have some new beautiful selections this year, all my own designs, all hand cut.
No cookie cutters.
12/02/2023
I design a new ornament every year, and this is my 2023 offering. I really love how these little cardinals came out, and the dozen that I finished are all sold! Back to the studio!
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Our Story
It can't be distilled to just one art or medium; it's a deep need to create, and still be able to support those other habits, like eating, and sleeping indoors. The Bohemian, the hipster artist, the starving artist - the archetype marginalizes creatives as somehow superfluous, or not quite contributing to society. It's romantic, but it's a conceit of the "sensible". History and sociology would disagree.
What's a cramped cube-worker and ungratified artist to do? Change careers. Not to be taken lightly, there is planning and skills development; carefully guarding the safety of that corporateland paycheck; there's a lot of reading and learning, and looking at little Victorians off the Santa Fe Arts district and wondering if there's room in the garden for irises and a salt kiln. There are decisions to be made - what medium will be both accessible and affordable and allow me to create? Because focus one must.
And so I settled on my second-love, ceramics. Pottery. One of the fire arts. The possibility for bringing the handmade aesthetic to people is very exciting, but also the prospect of providing historical reenactors and recreationists high-fidelity pottery. And having the joy of researching it is deeply appealing to me, too.
But it's not all functional wares and research and chemistry (oh, my!). Ceramics permits me the creative outlet of sculptural forms, a place to explore the elements of art and design. There is plenty of room in the HandWerks concept to pursue the other fire arts - jewelry being my first love - and also to continue creative clothing arts in the Neo-Victorian-Steampunk venue, and historical clothing arts as well.
It's risky. And it's inevitable.
Melanie Unruh - Artist in Residence at HandWerks.
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38th To 46th Tennyson Street
Denver, CO
80212