Inspirations is Expanding: a Second Studio is Coming to Mission Street!
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
Inspirations is Expanding
This isn’t about changing who we are. It’s about giving ourselves the room to grow.
With more space comes the ability to say yes to things we’ve been dreaming about for a long time — expanding our clay program, growing our fused glass offerings, introducing canvas painting, and adding retail. It gives us room to build intentionally, offer more variety, and create an experience that feels both elevated and true to what we've already built at Inspirations.
This expansion also gives our family the room to build something side by side. Duncan and I have stepped into this season together, in a way that supports both our business goals and the kind of life we want to live. It’s incredibly meaningful to be doing this with our daughter Emma along for the ride — growing up surrounded by creativity, community, and handmade moments.
Thank you for supporting our small business, and for creating memories with us along the way. 🤍🎨
What’s Happening + Why
Our original studio will stay right where it is at 📍 400 9th Street in Wenatchee.
Inspirations is expanding with a second creative studio location at 📍 134 N Mission Street in Wenatchee.
For a long time, we’ve had ideas for expanding our creative offerings, but we never wanted to pursue that at the expense of what already works so well as a walk-in pottery painting studio at 9th Street.
During the week of Thanksgiving 2025, I saw that the local paint and sip studio, Class With a Glass, was preparing to sell and I reached out to Nancy (the owner) to connect and learn more. At the time, I didn’t have a plan — I genuinely just wanted to check in on another local creative business that was going through a transition.
After our first thoughtful conversation, the idea naturally formed. I left that meeting overwhelmed in the best way — dreaming and thinking: what if the Mission Street space could continue as an art studio under Inspirations?
To clarify: Inspirations did not purchase the Class With a Glass business. Their business closed, we purchased select equipment and started a new lease for the building.
It feels incredibly meaningful to know that art will continue in this space, and you may even see Nancy in the future as a guest instructor at an Inspirations painting class (more on that later).
Inspirations has always been about more than art — it’s about connection. It’s about being a place where all ages feel welcome. It’s about creating memories. This second space is our opportunity to grow without compromising the heart of Inspirations — and to keep building something our community can be part of for years to come.
What We’re Bringing to Mission Street
Here’s what you can expect as we build this new space, while keeping the experience approachable for beginners, inspiring for returning artists and continuing the familiar atmosphere we've created at Inspirations 9th Street.
Expanding Clay
Clay has been a long-time dream for us, and this location gives us the room to build it the right way — with better flow and the necessary space for pottery wheels, hand building, and impressions.
Wheel throwing classes began at 9th Street studio about a year ago, by moving tables to the side and pulling wheels out for every class after our walk-in studio hours. It will be such a relief being able to place wheels in a place they will stay (we have 9 wheels)! Duncan is especially excited about this side of the expansion, and he’ll be focusing a lot of his time on wheels as we grow. We’ll be offering intro, advanced, and multi-week class options, plus private parties and (eventually) a membership program.
We’ve done a handful of hand-building classes, but again it takes more time to prepare and clean up for classes, as our entire studio is set up for pottery painting. With workbench style tables and a welcoming open space to create you will be able to build your own pieces from a ball of clay. Using a variety of tools, texture and your imagination the possibilities are endless. Our plan is to offer walk-ins (later on), classes, private parties, take-home kits, and a membership program.
Clay impressions have been on my business plan for many years and it feels incredibly meaningful to be able to start this now, with Emma as our little helper for samples and experimenting. Think timeless keepsakes featuring handprints of your littles while they are still little or bring in the whole family to make a family plaque with everyone’s hands (don’t forget pet paws too 🐾)!
Offered with one-on-one reservations for our team to assist you with project choices, design and leaving your prints. Then we will take care of the rest — drying, cleaning, bisque firing, painting, glaze firing and then packaging for you to pick up your completed keepsake.
Expanding Fused Glass
Fused glass has been such a loved part of what we offer, and Mission Street gives us the space to grow it in a way that feels smoother for everyone — more room to show off all the colors, organize tools, increase our slump choices, display samples and more flexibility with scheduling.
To start, fused glass at Mission Street will be primarily classes and parties, with walk-in options coming later.
Canvas Painting (Yes, really!)
We’re introducing canvas painting to Inspirations with a licensed artist whose designs we genuinely love — and many of them can even translate beautifully onto pottery painting, too!
Canvas is a fun “create it + take it home the same day” option, and we’re excited to offer that alongside the fired arts that we’re known for. Canvas will begin through classes and parties, with walk-ins and take-home kits coming later.
Relieving 9th Street Studio
If you’ve visited our studio between October-January, any given Saturday, Sunday or day that kids have no school, or hey even sometimes a random Wednesday… our studio gets FULL! With this added space we plan to use Mission Street studio as an addition for pottery painting.
Stocked with a selection of pottery pieces, glazes, painting supplies and introducing the option of painting with acrylics to take home your decorative creations the same day. Acrylic pieces don’t get fired to become food safe / waterproof ceramic, but very convenient for last minute gifts, visitors from out of town, and just another fun style of painting to explore!
We’ll be able to say, “I’m so sorry we are currently full, BUT you can head down the road and visit our Mission Street studio!” 👏🏻
Handmade Retail
As a creative arts studio we have made hundreds of samples to inspire our customers and have dabbled in selling finished work over the years, but we are so excited that this new space at Mission will allow us to build a dedicated retail area.
Think hand-thrown and hand-painted pottery, fused glass jewelry, take-home kits for pottery painting and clay handbuilding, bottles of glaze and acrylic paint to-go, paintbrush packs, variety of art supplies/kits, Wenatchee inspired art — all created by the Inspirations team.
More Ways to Create + More Room to Breathe
This second studio opens doors for:
• more scheduling flexibility
• more space for classes + private parties
• more creative variety under one brand
• more behind-the-scenes room to run a smooth studio (or two ☺️)
What About The Cafe?
The cafe is part of our identity at 9th Street, and it will remain there. ☕️
For Mission Street, we’re keeping an open mind. We want this space to feel warm + welcoming (and yes, I’d obviously love espresso there too), but we’re taking this one step at a time and making decisions based on what’s realistic for the building and what serves the creative community space experience best.
Timeline + What to Expect Next
We officially got the keys February 1, 2026! 🥳 Which happened to be one year exactly since we found out I was pregnant with Emma. 🥹
This month, we’ll be in full “behind the scenes” mode:
cleaning + organizing
painting + refreshing the space
moving in equipment + supplies
building furniture + layout
planning our calendar
We’ll be sharing progress along the way on social media (think before + after moments).
Our goal is to not rush the process — we want this studio to be fully organized and ready for production — you can follow along and feel part of the process with us!
Open House Plans
Once the studio is ready we will host an open house for the community! So everyone can get a tour of the space and get excited with us on this new addition to Inspirations.
Details will be added here as soon as we finalize the dates.
How to Stay in The Loop
This blog post will be our “home base” for Mission Street updates — we’ll keep adding to it as plans become official. To make sure you don’t miss anything:
follow along on instagram + facebook @inspirationsceramic
create an account on our website (members get our email newsletter and will be the first to know about the open house and calendar for events)
add us to your contacts to avoid any emails going to your spam folder inspirationsceramic@gmail.com
Comments