Four years ago, The Clay Co-op was just a seed, an idea, a space, and a genuine curiosity about what this community would grow into.

Founder Gabriella Schmid started as an intern at Charlie Parker Pottery, learning what it actually takes to run a studio, the unglamorous parts just as much as the creative ones. In 2022, she and Bo Countryman brought that vision to St. Petersburg's Warehouse Arts District, opening The Clay Co-op with a handful of members, a shared commitment to craft, and a whole lot of grit.

A hundred members later, we have full kilns, a packed class schedule, a gallery that's hosted work we're genuinely proud of, and a community that has become something bigger than any of us planned for. People came in as beginners and became artists. Artists became teachers. Some came in not knowing a soul and left with a studio family.

Bloom is our fourth anniversary show, and it belongs entirely to the people who built this place with us. We asked each of them to make a planter, something personal, something that feels like them, and bring them together into a living installation. A community garden, tended by many different pairs of hands. When you walk through this space, you're seeing four years of growth made literal.

The show is called Bloom because that's the most honest word we have for what's happened here. Not overnight, not all at once, but steadily, season by season, with every new member who walked in not knowing anyone and eventually couldn't imagine the studio without. The clay was always the starting point. The community is what grew from it.

Take a look around. Every planter in this room was made by someone who chose to show up, make something, and share it.

Every plant in this room started as a seed. So did we.