What started as a law office With a ceramic pop up shop has become the most amazing Retail space in Hout Bay and became known as the Collective Hout Bay.
Visit their store inside La Cuccina in Victoria Mall on cnr Empire and victoria Road. Their social media is a visual feast.
Geskenk is a beautiful initiative sourcing goods from socially sustainable creators. Vicky Scheffel approached us to create ceramics for her bespoke gift boxes. We offer the opportunity to the Bursary students To make the stock required on order so that they can create to earn. We are so proud to be associated with Geskenk.
Go For Gold chose to host their year end function at the studio. 8 colleagues worked independently on their own tile to create a 9 tile mosaic to hang in their office. They also created their own Christmas decorations.
HBSPI was founded to allow for two things: one to be a creative well equipped space for the founders Julie and Katie to play with clay at will, the other reason was derived from the conditions of operating in the maker space called Workspace. These conditions created and maintained by Craig Dunlop were that we were to offer some kind of skills training and earning opportunities to the less fortunate community living in Hout Bay.
So how did we do it…
We encouraged friends to join us and learn pottery from us the modest skills we had acquired on our respective potting journeys. These friends came on board and paid us for materials and our guidance thereby allowing us to provide an equipped studio to offer bursaries to students. The criteria for the bursary was “show up”. If applicants were willing and interested and committed to the weekly lessons then we would welcome them back week after week.
The finances were often tricky and we had to ensure we were growing as well as offering a quality service to the paying members of the studio. We conducted short courses, corporate events, workshops and open days and exhibitions to generate the additional income we needed to keep the clay coming and the kiln firing.
The result…. An amazing group of students each from different environments in the diverse valley that is Hout Bay. Visitors from Canada and the UK, South Africans from Durban, Capetonians, Zimbabweans, Harbour residents, Informal settlement residents all mixing and sharing stories and ideas. Social cohesion at work.
This so called socially responsible project allowed NGO’s and CSI to incorporate us into their world. Go for Gold hosted their Year end function in the studio, GESKENK were also able to include our ceramics as part of their conscious gifting Offering.
Our move to the new larger earthworx studio gave rise to Pottery at Earthworx in October 2019. The large sunny, inviting well positioned studio allowed for frequent workshops, retail space, and Childrens classes.
In June 2018 Katie Forsyth and Julie Anderson created the Hout Bay Social Pottery Initiative or HBSPI at the old Workspace in the Hout Bay Harbour area. The primary focus of the Workspace, a Maker Society, is to help break down the social economic walls that divide young people in the Hout Bay community. We adopted a version of the core values of Workspace, which are:
To provide a platform for knowledge and skills exchange across the social, cultural and generational divides.
To provide resources for people from all backgrounds, ages and abilities to use making as a tool for social empowerment, regeneration, inclusion, economic opportunity and social capital.
To promote empowerment and responsibility through learning practical skills, confidence building, emotional well being and collaboration with others.
To support individuals to build enterprises with access to equipment, space, and experience/knowledge base.
To provide opportunities for skill sharing by fostering a dynamic and inclusive community of makers.
To follow the new business paradigms of people before profits, reputation before revenue and collaboration before competition.
