Mold it and They Will Come

Sharon McAuley, owner of on Fourth and B, is a relative newcomer to ceramics.

But her pieces—vases and decorative tiles—have been getting a lot of attention from customers, who were snatching them up from her shelves. So McAuley teamed up with her teacher and established Petaluma ceramics artist Jane McDonald to open a new clay studio and gallery right inside her store.

The space, called Studio Clay, opened March 1 and will host a grand opening celebration later this month.

“I found myself torn between taking classes at Jane’s home studio and needing to run my store,” says McAuley, who left an unfulfilling career in insurance to open her home and garden store 14 years ago. “And Jane wanted to get her studio out of her house, so it just kind of happened.”

The duo plans to convert the front of the space into a ceramics gallery and offer classes in the back.

“Clay is such a fabulous medium to work with and people get such a satisfaction from it,” says McDonald, a ceramics teacher and successful artist who has exhibited her work around the world. “It’s very tactile and forgiving and you can just get lost in it for hours.”

McDonald’s pieces, done in the raku process, are colorful and abstract and include bowls, vases and other vessels. With raku, the shock of sudden cooling of the clay cracks the surface and creates a more unrefined surface. 

Locals have already been turning out in droves to sign up for both women’s classes and space is still available at McAuley's beginning handbuilding class, held Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6pm. For more information, contact Sharon McAuley at SJcreatives5@aol.com or Jane McDonald at janemcd55@aol.com.

Know a great local business that deserves mention? Drop editor Karina Ioffee a note at karina@patch.com