Paint Yourself Silly: your local creative outlet
The smell of clay and paint fills the room. Kids are laughing and customers are picking out their pottery pieces. Customers feel creative as they turn into artists for the time being.
Paint Yourself Silly is a paint-your-own pottery studio that former owner Jenn Bassen opened in 2000, originally in the Historic Haymarket. A new Lincoln local has taken over and they now have two new locations; 70th and Pioneers Boulevard and 14th and Pine Lake Road.
“I think what fills my cup are the memories where I make some sort of joy in the community,” Claire Briney, the current owner of Paint Yourself Silly, said. “We love doing outreach and charity engagement for Lincoln and the surrounding areas. So when I hear a story of a gift or a project that we gave to someone and it made an impact, that brings me a lot of joy.”
Bassen was a ceramicist who wanted a place to be able to share her passion with the community. After two decades, Bassen decided to retire and pass on the legacy to another Lincoln artist.
“I started working with Jenn in 2016,” Briney said. “I had just finished my art degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was kind of looking for a way to get into the creative business world and hit it off with her. I ended up managing one of her locations for several years before she said she was planning to retire, and I offered to buy her out.”
Ever since Briney was a kid, she loved going to Paint Yourself Silly. Working there now has created a “full-circle” moment for her.
Briney wanted to originally pursue art education, but working with Bassen made her realize that working at a paint-your-own pottery studio was what she wanted to do.
“I loved teaching art education to children of all ages,” Briney said. “With the amount of diverse clientele that we get at Paint Yourself Silly, that ended up being a satisfying outlet for me to teach and to make my own art.”
Paint Yourself Silly offers a creative outlet for the Lincoln community. Customers can choose a pottery piece from dishes, houseware, little figurines and more, to paint and express themselves.
Once customers have their pottery pieces picked out, they can then pick a color palette and the workers at Paint Yourself Silly will teach pottery painting techniques.
“I love seeing people getting creative,” Lilliana Giesemann, a member of the management staff, said. “There's so much stress in everyday life, so it's nice just to get to see people come in, decompress and create cool stuff.”
Painted pottery pieces take a couple of days to be ready to bring home. Pieces must be fired in the kiln for a few days and then customers can come pick up their creations.
Paint Yourself Silly also has specialty projects at each location. At the Pioneer Woods location, customers can experiment with fused glass. At the Pine Lake location, customers can make creations with hand-rolled clay.
“Creating and having a little art date is a great stress reliever,” Briney said. “It is so therapeutic to take time to yourself and make something. We love getting students from campus, coming with their friends, with their dates or by themselves just to take a little time to get that creative rest and express themselves.”
Paint Yourself Silly is open Tuesday through Wednesday from 12-8 p.m., Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.