In third grade, Julianne O?Connor had an epiphany.
“We were in class and the teacher handed out clay and told us to build a house,” recalled O?Connor, 43. “That?s when I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
As of December, O?Connor is the proud owner of Kids ?N? Clay, a pottery studio in White Marsh. The energetic mother of two ? Jessica, 16, and Caitlin, 11 ? also juggles a day job as a housing program manager in Baltimore and a husband, Michael.
After graduating from Dulaney High School, O?Connor earned degrees in psychology and ceramics from Towson University and, with an assist from the Baltimore County?s Small Business Resource Center, opened her childhood dream-come-true in January. O?Connor took a small-business course through Baltimore County six years ago, then received help with her recent loan application and business plan.
“I thought it might be another 10 years before I started my own business, but then last Memorial Day I was surfing the Web for something unrelated and this site for a franchise came up,” O?Connor recounted. “I met with the owners from California in June and bought a franchise.”
By December, her house was filled with potters? wheels, kilns, glazes, hand-building tables, paint and hundreds of pounds of clay. She moved into the studio the next month, hired four recent graduates from the Maryland Institute College of Art as instructors. “The wheels are the same type we used at school,” said Robert Bilek, a teacher at the studio.
The goal in her business plan was 50 students enrolled before June; by April, she had 58. Weekly classes typically cost $95 a month, with all supplies included, and can be made up if missed.
On a recent weeknight, as vases, bowls, sculpted self-portraits and a Loch Ness monster sat in the front window, 10 local children from elementary to middle school age were lost in their art, and in aprons and faces covered in clay. Jared Pearson, 6, intently spun wet clay through his fingers with a smile. His hands were up and then he pressed his thumbs down through the center. Magically, a lump turned into a perfect bowl.
His brother Dawson, 8, painted a volcano-and-Godzilla work nearby.
“They love it,” said their dad, Clinton. “They?ve both played soccer, but when we gave them a choice, they wanted to come to the summer camp here.”
More information
» Kids ?N? Clay
Walther Boulevard Shopping Center
8601 Walther Blvd., White Marsh
410-668-KIDS
