art cafe
“Be be brave enough to be terrible.”
I see a lot of conversations revolve around what we’ve lost from COVID. People we lost, places we lost. And one of the terms I’ve heard flashing up around this discussion is what’s called the “third space.” It’s a term that describes a place outside of your work and home.
And in the spirit of the third space, my sister tossed out an idea to go to what’s called an art cafe. Plainly put, instead of food, you order art projects to do with your friends. Examples include friendship bracelets, painting ceramics, molding clay, watercolor paints and more.
This is where I decided to go with my friends for my 27th birthday (see world’s worst birthday). Here’s how it went.
I’m an introvert, as my close friends know, and I am not the type who enjoys the club, or alcohol enthusiasts. I can hardly stand a bar too late at night (drunk people frighten me). So this was the perfect activity-based event for us all.
This company, called Happy Medium, has two “art cafe” locations. One in Manhattan, a stones throw from the Brooklyn Bridge, and one in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Their website was chock full of fun hands-on activities you could sign up for, as well as free printable coloring pages!
But you can’t make a reservation on their website. You can only reserve spots by DMing through their instagram page: @gethappymedium.
We had a reservation for 4:30 on a Sunday. I arrived to a two-story building with wide sprawling windows; classes on the first floor, art cafe on the top. Every table was full; New York came out in full to beat the Sunday scaries.
The art cafe span through the whole floor, front to back. It was a wide, slightly warm room full of paint-stained art tables and oil sketches plastered on the walls. As I scanned the room, I saw several posters saying “Be brave enough to be terrible.” It was a mess. And I couldn’t have felt more comfortable.
Mentioning it was my birthday, they offered me a free drink. I chose a new THC drink called Cann. One friend arrived late and waited a while for the “waiter.” They apologized and offered her a free drink too. Service!
We were seated at a large, long-loved table with scratches, dents and paint splashes. Our “waiter” gave us all a run down of what we could expect, with many helpful placards explaining the process.
We all decided to paint a pot with glaze, which would be fired in their kiln and could be picked up a few weeks later. We were shown to a shelf full of blank items to paint: light switch covers, pet dishes, mugs, vases and more. I chose a mug.
Additionally, for my birthday, I was given an adorable hand made paper crown from the staff. It was childlike and wonderful. I decorated that too.
As we all started picking our designs and struck the first paint drop, we found ourselves talking about how unusual this was.
We discussed how this was activating a part of our brains we shut down a long time ago. Some of us wished we had come more “prepared.”
That stuck with me.
In the moment I fully agreed - I wish I had thought about my design more thoroughly and come with a plan. But another thought came too. Why do I always need a plan?
I think as humans, we want a plan because a plan means stability. And stability means safety, it means a roof over our heads and everything we need to be well. But, not sure if you’ve all also lived through a global pandemic, but it changed me into someone much less comfortable with having no plan. Our leaders never had a plan, the people we looked to at that time of crisis didn’t have a plan.
Because of that, spontaneity is something that I no longer really practice in my life. I’m also currently in a financial situation where there’s not much wiggle room - ergo, not any room for mistakes. Nobody has any money left over for mistakes, so mistakes can’t be made, boundaries can’t be tested, people can’t grow.
I found that unconscious fear and rigidity holding me back in this art cafe. I really struggled to find what I should paint. It cost us all around $40-50, but I don’t have twice that to spare right now. So I get one shot.
I can be very absolutist, and this art cafe was challenging me to drop that. And I didn’t fucking want to.
But a thought from my brother rang through my head: “nothing matters.”
It’s hard to fully agree with that right now. There’s so much pain and strife in our world, and we are all now so acutely aware of it, I feel I could name several things that do actually matter.
But this - painting this little pot - does not matter.
It was so nice and so freeing to just make a thing for the first time, and do so in a space that’s meant for crappy first tries. It’s meant for things to go wrong, meant for spills and cracks. I wish a messy space upon everyone; a place where you can go and splatter your feelings and traumas on the wall just for the sake of release.
It’s good to know I now have a safe messy space over on Market street.