Mostly Good Studios, a community hub and maker-space in Astoria hosted “Sculpt Your Sweetie” on Valentine’s Day. (Photos: Tashroom Ahsan)
By Adeline Daab & Tashroom Ahsan | news@queensledger.com
This Valentine’s Day, choosing to step beyond the rut of dinner reservations and drugstore chocolates could’ve landed you at a workbench with three long-term couples and a pair with a 20-year history and an intentionally mysterious relationship (“whatever we are, it’s worse than married”). All were engrossed in an uncommon expression of enduring admiration: sculpting and painting a bust of their partner.
The “Sculpt your Sweetie” workshop was hosted by Mostly Good Studios, a multi-medium studio nestled at the corner of Astoria’s 9th St. and 35th Ave. The studio’s bright and eclectic charm was accentuated by the white and red lace draped over the side tables, the abundance of “aww”-eliciting ceramic slug-like creatures, and gossamer butterfly curtains. Candles dripped into their waxy fate, shelves of clay creations dried in the wake of past workshops, and sunset-tinted seashells dangled from the ceiling. Yet the wellspring of the studio’s inviting energy was the woman singlehandedly running the operation.
Eight locals came out for the event, which saw multiple spontaneous exclamations of “I’m having so much fun!”
Kaitlyn Sather’s warm and vibrant energy is the first thing you experience when you walk through the door to Mostly Good Studios, and it lingers with you long after you leave. It infuses Sather’s encouraging and trusting teaching style. People came into the studio with no sense of their artistic abilities, and left as confident creators, proud of the pieces they’d produced. Introductions included statements like “I’ve been taking a ceramics class recently, but I don’t think I could make a person” and “Hi, I’m Joe, and I can barely spell ceramic.” These same participants wrapped up the class having lovingly reproduced their partners’ rosy cheeks, the details of their clothing, or their upper-arm tattoos.
Emerging regularly from the gleeful inter-couple chatter were unprompted exclamations of “I’m having so much fun.” The playful energy palpable throughout the afternoon is exactly what Sather inspires people to tap into during her workshops. “Space for play, I think, is essential for feeling connected to your humanity and other people,” Sather told the Astoria Journal, “so I try my darndest to create an energy that reminds you that this is fun, this is play… if it’s become hard as an adult to get contact with that space, I try to create an energy in the room that makes that point of contact a little bit easier.” Sather breaks down the fear-strengthened barriers to accessing that creative energy by emphasizing that “what’s important to me here is not what you make at the end of it. It’s that you enjoy the making process.”
“Sculpt your Sweetie” debuted this Valentine’s Day, but it is not the first of Sather’s emotionally-resonant workshops. Mostly Good Studios hosts “Very Angry Women,” a workshop that cultivates a safe space to tap into the anger that accompanies womanhood and heal through ceramic practice, and a workshop called “Pasta Body,” where you eat a carb-heavy homemade meal and then sculpt your body afterwards, becoming attuned to the beauty of your body as it exists when it is nourished.
Sather encourages everyone, whether at Mostly Good Studios or any of the other wonderful arts spaces in Astoria, to step out of their comfort zone and find an outlet to flex their creative muscles. “Try it, if you’re curious about it, because I think it can be really life-changing to connect with that part of yourself and be in a room full of people who are also doing the same thing, who are maybe showing up alone. It can be very healing to be in a space like that.”
The finished products!
“Sculpt your Sweetie” proved that this practice can bring you not only closer to yourself but also to the partner you’re doing it with. A chorus of playful roasts and genuine awe at a partner’s developing skills rippled through the room. New sides were revealed. Most importantly, though, were the memories (and souvenirs) they’ll giggle about for years to come.
For more information about Mostly Good Studios’ upcoming events, visit this link.
