ClearWater Ceramics Center is OPEN!
Our 1st Ceramics Classes Started Nov. 1, 2023
View our NEW VIDEO showcasing the Ceramics Center, and (below) the Online Virtual Tour of the Ceramics Center, uploaded here as of early February, 2024! - With Many Thanks to our intrepid and beloved Video Guru, Johny Walker of Blue Label Visuals; THANK YOU JOHNY!
If you are interested in potential ceramics, pottery and/or ceramics sculpture classes, See links below; OR if you are qualified to teach and would be interested, please email ClearWater Coordinator Sarah Gay to help us build our programming!
Please see our Facebook and Instagram pages for more recent updates including reels and photos showing the finished Ceramics Center interior and happy students in classes! Also CHECK OUT our new Ceramics Center Video, ABOVE and our new Ceramics Center Online Virtual Tour, BELOW!
Upcoming Ceramics Center Events & classes -
Not all upcoming Classes are shown here; See All Scheduled, & Register, on the Civic Rec Platform (https://secure.rec1.com/NC/concord-nc/catalog) - Once you make your account, you only have to log in, later to register for other activities! Look for the ClearWater Arts Center & Studios tab for all current program listings offered here.
If you need help with registration, a Staff member can assist: call Concord Parks & Rec, 704-920-5600.
What Is the Ceramics Center?
In case you are just hearing about the addition of our Ceramics Center, it is a completely outfitted facility providing large group-working and class space; correlating locker and storage space; glazing room, glaze-mixing room, and kiln room with standard-size kilns. There are eight large restaurant-style sinks throughout the facility. Holden Building Co. helped bring these plans to reality (see photo album below). The former storage shed that sits adjacent to Kerr Street has become a full-service Ceramics Center complete with classroom space, glazing room, and kiln-firing room. This renovation project was funded out of the City's federal HUD block grants for Community Development; and continues the vision of ClearWater as a community development project, to benefit the neighborhood, city, and region.
A short Photo-Album… Ceramics Center Construction & Outfitting (April, 2021 - October, 2023)
Pandemic-related supply-chain delays and long backorders delayed some things, while the Holden Building Co. team persevered and built our long-awaited new Ceramics Center! The Certificate of Operation was granted in Sept. 2022 but some tweaks to HVAC and custom-exhaust systems kept the project running a few more months… and then… we had to outfit it, and hire our part-time Site Supervisors! More good developments to come as we transition from the Planning Department into the Concord Parks & Recreation Department, with classes available online and programming support from Parks Programs staff.
MANY THANKS to our Expert Advisors from Clayworks Charlotte, Starworks Ceramics, Carolina Clay Connection, UNC-Charlotte Ceramics Studio in the Department of Art & Art History, and others, who for 4+ years’ gave a ton of good advice, and time for reviews of draft plans! We are indebted… also to Cannon Foundation/ Mariam & Robert Hayes Charitable Trust, for the grant that bought a majority of our pottery equipment (wheels, kilns..) and to our own City of Concord Community Development Team, in the Planning & Neighborhood Development Department, fielding Community Development grant funding from the Housing & Urban Development Department since 2002 (and ongoing, with 2 more major phases to come, as of Nov. 2023) to help renovate previously hollowed-out City-owned relics of history, into a vibrant art center … that YOU our community, requested and continue to ask for. Thank you!
Ceramics Center - Preview Event Held Oct. 26, 2022!
Ribbon Cutting to Mark Construction Completion
Special thanks to everyone who came out to the @clearwaterartsnc ClearWater Arts Center & Studios Ceramics Center Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022 for the preview and ribbon-cutting ceremony!
The new ClearWater Ceramics Center will feature a retail space, studios for local artists, a large, open classroom space for pottery wheels and work tables, as well as a glazing room, mixing room, and kiln room. We’re excited about the future of the new Ceramics Center! We now are open, look for classes and events!
Early Updates…
Early Milestone Photos
March 11, 2022
The loading dock built and the shade roof framed out!
December 14, 2021
So far they, have demolished the old floor and re-poured the new flooring; cut out new windows; started construction of the loading dock, and removed the old roof.
August 27, 2021
Announcement that the construction of the Clearwater Ceramics Center has begun!
