Penn Avenue Pottery still fired up after 20 years in the Strip
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Pottery by Gary Pletsch at Penn Avenue Pottery. -
Gary Pletsch takes the wheel at Penn Avenue Pottery in the Strip District. -
From left: Penn Avenue Pottery owners Valda Cox, Matthias Bodnar, Gary Pletsch and Mike Gwaltney.
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In 1990, Penn Avenue Pottery's four founding members hung their sign at 1905 Penn Ave. It was going to be a cooperative, with a studio in back and retail space in front of the 1,000-square-foot building.
There was no business plan and scanty business acumen. They advertised with pots on sidewalk crates. It helped that they were right in the middle of the Strip District scene and had a generous landlord who worked with clay himself.
With three of the founding members and four newer partners, Penn Avenue Pottery is coming up on 20 years this summer. Two hundred people came through the door for a recent open-house celebration. That day's sales of almost $2,000 was a bigger one-day take than even during the Christmas shopping season.
But some mornings, the only person in the place is the potter on shift manning the counter.
"It's so insecure," said Gary Pletsch, a founding partner. "We've never made $100,000 here collectively. Some of us do have to supplement" their incomes.
But the overhead is low. The partners share a $750 rent and utilities.
The longevity of Penn Avenue Pottery owes to "Bill [Foglia, the building owner] and luck," said Mr. Pletsch. "And we have kept it simple."
He shares the studio with Mr. Foglia, who had a studio there before 1990 and whose father had operated a food import business before that.
"It is neat that they've been able to hold their own while other businesses come and go," said Joe Abeln, a potter from Indiana Township who has collected Mr. Pletsch's work.
"It is a unique gem in the diversity of the Strip," said Becky Rodgers, executive director of Neighbors in the Strip. "I admire their spirit, their being in business for 20 years and how they have been able to work together and share responsibilities. Also their talent."
First Published March 28, 2010 12:00 am
