Arts ENCORE
Kickstarter Artist
JunFu Han
Successful campaign launches Grayling Ceramics
I
n the basement of the Reality Factory, at 213 E. Frank St., in Kalamazoo, sculptor and ceramicist Shay Church is crouched down side-by-side with an electrician, scoping out connection options for two electric kilns Church ordered for his new studio, Grayling Ceramics. Church bought the kilns with money raised through a Kickstarter campaign in the fall of 2014. A total of 203 backers pledged $20,000, and Church not only used the money to buy the kilns, but he rented and cleaned up his new studio space and began producing an inventory of handmade clay creations — cups, bowls, steins and growlers. “The idea of having my own studio has always been in the back of my head,” says Church, who is also a part-time ceramics instructor at 32 | Encore FEBRUARY 2015
Above, ceramicist and sculptor Shay Church poses in his new studio space in the basement of the Reality Factory, in Kalamazoo’s North Side neighborhood. Opposite page, Church forms a vessel.
Western Michigan University. “I’ve been thinking of it for a very long time, and even though I didn’t know what to expect in the Kickstarter process, it’s worked out almost exactly as I hoped it would.” Part of the reason Church’s Kickstarter campaign was so successful, he says, is because he was consistently engaged with it. He hired videographers to translate his story into a video that was featured on the Kickstarter site, and he built in a tiered gift system on the site to give back to all of his supporters. Church raised about $4,000 more than his goal of $16,000 and now uses his Kickstarter page to keep backers updated on his