-

-

If you weren’t looking, you  might have missed it. Tucked away in a former carriage house at 320 3rd St. NE, Eastern Market Pottery is again open for business.

On a chilly night in December, students trickle in for pottery class. As the students enter, each one is greeted with soft exclamations of surprise -- the slick roads kept some less intrepid students away.

          For owner Chuck Brome, this night’s gathering is the continuation of a dream that started almost 40 years ago. Things faltered on April 30 this year, when flames gutted its original studio space in the South Hall of Eastern Market

“It was like the clock stopped. We had green pottery, we had stuff that hadn’t been fired,” Brome said sadly. But with the help of studio staff and volunteers, everything moved to locations scattered around the city, including staff homes, D.C. General Hospital and the Lee Center in Arlington.

-

“We just piled everything up against the wall,” said Audrey Jones, a teacher who started as a student at Eastern Market Pottery in 1971.  

Jones isn’t alone. Manae Fujishiro, a retired Library of Congress rare-book cataloguer, began taking classes “in 1970-something.”

Elizabeth Williams, an intern from Madison, Wis., found the studio when she saw a flier in Murky Coffee, near Eastern Market. “It’s one of the nicest pottery studios I’ve been in, in terms of friendliness and resources,” she said. 

Finding workable studio space after the fire wasn’t easy. Brome eventually found space through word of mouth. With assistance from the Capitol Hill Community Foundation and the D.C. Office of Property Management, Brome signed a one-year lease in September

“After the fire, we thought, ‘It can’t end like this,’” he said.

Pottery has been Brome's passion for all of his adult life. A smile breaks over his face when he talks about how he got where he is.

“Why do I love pottery? ... Oh God! I set out to study architecture after high school,” he said. After a few academic twists and turns, he found himself in the art department at the University of Montana.

“… School got fun, and pottery was the thing I liked most,” he said.

Brome had worked with a potter in Ecuador during a stint in the Peace

 Corps, as well as in Vietnam while completing a tour of duty in the Navy.

He came to Eastern Market Pottery as a student in 1970, a young Navy officer looking for a career.

“This pottery opportunity presented itself and I fell into it,” he said. Brome progressed from mixing clays and glazes to teaching classes to eventually taking over the business.

Two students, Lori Hamilton and Lynn Murphy, pause from their work to enthuse over a catalog from the Demarest, N.J., pottery show.

“Oh, he’s my favorite potter,” Hamilton exclaims, pointing excitedly to a page.

Hamilton started as Brome’s student five years ago. “I was in a really bad relationship, and I was on the waiting list for a class and I got a call from the studio,” she said. “I held onto it like it was the thing that was gonna save my life, and in a way it did,” she laughed.

“It’s a great exercise. It teaches you about process rather than product. It forces you to let go,” she said.

“There are so many things that can go wrong,” Murphy added. “In life we’re anal and methodical, and in pottery it’s just the opposite.”

Hamilton describes her favorite piece, a cup whose glaze and color were altered when the kiln fan got turned off. The cup turned coral instead of the dark orange it was supposed to be, and the glaze was patterned with uneven colorations that resemble blossoms.

“It’s not a particularly well-made piece. But I’ll never sell it, I’ll never give it away,” said Hamilton.

Eastern Market Pottery is slated to take over basement studio space in the new Eastern Market building.

Eastern Market Pottery offers studio classes for students at all levels Monday through Thursdays from 7 to 10 p.m. The studio is also open on Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m.

         The city announced yesterday that it has hired the urban-planning organization Project for Public Spaces to help shape the management of Eastern Market.

            Earlier this year, the Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee recommended that the Office of Property Management hire the nonprofit Project for Public Spaces to usher the market into an improved management scheme. Stakeholders have complained for years that poor management has kept the market from realizing its full potential.

            “I’m hoping there will be a good response” to the request for management applications, market committee member Ellen Opper-Weiner said, adding that she wants a fair process for choosing new management.

            Currently, the market building is managed as two separate entities -- the North Hall and the South Hall. Because of the fire, South Hall merchants now operate from the temporary structure, or “East Hall.”

            The lease for the North Hall, managed by John Harrod, expired last year, and Eastern Market Ventures’ lease for the South Hall will expire next summer with an option to extend an additional six months.

            Market committee members said when the South Hall lease expires, the city should grasp the opportunity to fix past mistakes. They have suggested hiring one manager to oversee the entire market to create a smoother, collaborative operation.  

         Since the fire in April, merchants and vendors have said Eastern Market Ventures has fallen short on promotion, a task taken up by the Capitol Hill Community Foundation.

         According to a release, the Property Office said the Project for Public Spaces will help draft a request for proposals to “realize the holistic vision for the Market embodied in the Eastern Market legislation.”

         "We look forward to a market manager who will bring together all segments of the Eastern Market experience," Property Office director Lars Etzkorn said in the release. "While we have largely overcome the immediate consequences of the fire with the success of the temporary East Hall, the manager will integrate the many, often varied elements that are the Market's secret."

         The Property Office said it plans to release the request for proposals in late winter. Under the $49,000 contract, the Project for Public Spaces will make recommendations on operations of the South Hall, North Hall, East Hall Farmers Line and surrounding vendors.

         According to the Property Office, the Project for Public Spaces team will be led by David K. O'Neil, who previously managed the Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market and has worked with markets in Portland, Ore., Chicago, Detroit Flint, Mich., and Anchorage, Alaska, among other cities.