Preparing for summer's arrival usually includes stocking up on sunscreen, breaking out the jorts and ensuring the air conditioning is in working order before the first heat wave.
At Urban Art Co-op, summer preparations happen year-round.
Fingers are covered in clay, kilns are always firing, and hand-shaped bowls are dipped into colorful glazes nearly every day at the pottery studio on North Monroe Street, all for its annual fundraiser, Scoops & Bowls.
Urban Art Co-op's six founders convened in a restaurant at the end of 2014 to dream up plans for a member-owned pottery studio. By March of the following year, bylaws were written and classes got underway in a small studio on Monroe, down the street from their eventual home. The studio's six founders also immediately began making bowls for the co-op's inaugural Scoops & Bowls.
"We hauled like 300 bowls up to Manito Park that first year," co-founder Karen Mannino says. "We almost sold out as well. I think we brought back seven bowls. We thought we were on top of the world back then!"
Now, in its ninth year, Urban Art Co-op's 63 members have collectively made over 2,000 bowls to sell in Manito Park this Saturday, along with scoops of delicious huckleberry, cookie dough and vanilla ice cream, plus fruit popsicles for the dairy-free crowd.
All of the bowls — which come with a free scoop of ice cream — start at $15 and go up from there depending on size. Mannino says a line usually forms, so attendees may want to arrive early for the 10 am event.
Throughout the year, the co-op has been hosting bowl-making parties called Create Days in order to meet their quota for Scoops & Bowls.
"We fill up all of the wheels we have and have people running, wedging clay and just keeping everything moving," Mannino says. "Sometimes we play musical wheels. You get three minutes to throw, and then you switch with someone. It's really great experience and practice."
As bowls are made and fired, they're moved to boxes which are then stored in a shipping container. For the big event, the vessels are transported up to Manito Park via a U-Haul, ready to go to their new homes.
Even before this year's event has happened, the co-op has scheduled a Create Day in August to make about 200 bowls for Scoops & Bowls 2025, Mannino says.
This year's Scoops & Bowls is particularly important to Urban Arts members as it will fund their biggest project yet.
"We try to keep the rent paid with member dues and keep the lights on with the student money essentially," Mannino says. "And then Scoops & Bowls has always been for big improvements."
But for the last couple years, the studio has been putting money raised at Scoops & Bowls aside to move the studio into a larger space. Later this year, the co-op is moving from North Monroe to a building in far North Spokane on the Newport Highway. Some may recognize the location by the zebra sculpture that sits atop a tall pole near the highway, peeking its head out from the trees.
"When I was a kid that building was, like, iconic to me," Mannino says. "It's about 5,000 square feet of open warehouse. We're in there all the time right now fixing it up — painting, filling holes in the floor, and getting everything ready to move in hopefully by the fall."
The co-op's current digs can only accommodate about 65 members and 30 to 40 pottery students each quarter. Mannino hopes to grow those numbers once Urban Art Co-op settles into its new location later this year.
"This place is some of our members' livelihoods," Mannino says. "We have 18 members who run their entire business out of here."
Co-founder Autumn Bunton runs her business Goblin Pottery out of the co-op. So does Shannon Hagerty, who goes by The Common Potter.
"We're going to have a non-pottery conference room that we can use for workshops and other art forms," Mannino says. "The new space will allow more variety in our schedule, and we'll be able to collaborate with other arts organizations in the city more easily."
And, yes, they're keeping the zebra statue. ♦
Scoops & Bowls • Sat, July 13 • $15+ • All ages • Manito Park, Lower Picnic Shelter • 1702 S. Grand Blvd. • urbanartcoop.org
