shop talk
oak cliff made Shopping at Tyler Station BY RACHEL STONE
H A N D M A D E M UG S , a local streetwear line, vintage clothes and bespoke face masks make up the merchandise at Trade Oak Cliff. But mark it on your schedule, because the studio/ boutique currently is open for retail sales from noon-6 p.m. Saturdays only. O a k C l i ff r e s i d e n t C o r rie Pocta, a high-school art teacher, pottery thrower and leather worker, s tar ted the business, which fits the mold of experimental retail and collaboration that the developer of Tyler Station envisioned. Pocta started offering potter y classes to adults over Zoom as a creative outlet after a school year frustrated by the pandemic. She says she coped with that and the death of her father last year “ by being a workaholic.” She opened the collaborative with female and femme identifying artists, all but one of whom live in our neighborhood. They’re also doing occasional mini-markets called Trade & Friends, where they bring in other local artists and makers for socially distanced shopping. “I’m really passionate about
it being from Oak Cliff and having a direct point where you can support the artist directly,” she says. Pocta plans to leave her full-time teaching job at the end of the school year to fully focus on her own art and Trade Oak Cliff. Having taken her students on class trips to Japan and Big Bend in the past, she’s leaning into her talent for organizing people. Oak Cliff is full of creative people, but they don’t always have a connection. “The bigger vision is a community center, a place where artists can collaborate with each other more frequently because they’re in closer contact with each other,” she says. For now, they’re keeping it small. Po c t a c u r r e n t l y t e a c h e s wheel-throwing from noon6 p.m. Mondays. It’s a fourweek series with two throwing classes, one trimming class and one glazing class. Contact her directly to ask for a seat, corriepocta@gmail.com. “I’m ver y good about boundaries,” she says. “I don’t want it to be a free-for-all, because clay can get wild, and I’d like to keep things clean.”
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oakcliff.advocatemag.com
MARCH 2021
