When coffee meets ceramics
- Author
- Elize ·
- Date
- 5 December 2023
You have probably seen it more and more over the past few years: people trying out pottery classes, painting workshops or sometimes both of these combined! Working with your hands and getting creative has risen in popularity and this trend has finally reached Groningen. This autumn a new café called Artsy Avenue has opened in our lovely city. It is a place where you not only DRINK your favourite coffee, but you get to paint a coffee mug at the same time. Artsy Avenue is the first creative ceramics café to open in the Netherlands. And everyone seems to love it.
So, how does it work? You reserve a spot at the café beforehand. When you arrive at Artsy Avenue you enter a calming, open space. To cover the expenses of the paint, brushes and materials, you pay a standard fee of 12,50 euros. When you are at the café you get to decide what type of item you want to paint, the choices being between mugs, plates, vases, etc. Each item has a different price that will be added to the initial 12,50. You get to your seat, order your favourite drink and get crafty! You can paint with whatever colours you’d like. When you are done, you unfortunately still have to leave your new creative project at the café. Artsy Avenue has to bake and glaze your item first. And then after two weeks, you will get to pick up your personal new home item!
Artsy Avenue might be the first ceramics café in the Netherlands, however this has been an on-going trend for the past two years in several countries around the world. Because we live in a fast-paced society, where work never seems to stop, more and more people began to feel the desire to slow down during the pandemic. During this time, many of us were confronted with our standard of living. This resulted in loads of people getting into mindfulness, self-reflection, creative endeavours and new hobbies. People want to become more present, which happens naturally when you are working with your hands on something. For example, painting ceramics!
The reason why places such as Artsy Avenue have become so wanted and well-visited is because people long for a sense of calm that easily comes when you are being creative. Painting ceramics, or painting in general for that matter, gets you focused in a way that doesn’t require any ‘thinking’. The type of thinking that we normally do when we are working or studying. Not only can being creative help with focus, but it is also extremely relaxing. Most of us are behind screens a lot and this little outing helps you to take a break from that. Additionally, you get to make something personal and something that is specifically your style or taste when you go to a café like Artsy Avenue, because you have made it yourself! And the beautiful part is that you do not need to be naturally creative, a great painter or perfect at drawing when you go to a place like this. As long as you are having fun and you think your own design is pretty, then that is more than enough. All you have do is get a little artsy.
