A year after receiving her Masters of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004, Noelle Wright became an adjunct teacher at Dominican University, where she’s a full-time professor of ceramics and sculpture today. She’s also been chair of Dominican’s art department for over two years.
When the university’s learning went remote during the pandemic, Wright said she began offering private lessons out of her Oak Park home’s basement studio to friends and “kids who needed to get out of the house.”
With growing interest in those lessons, in 2021, Wright opened Slowfire at 907 S. Lombard Ave. in Oak Park. For the past few years, Slowfire has hosted classes for all ages for wheel-throwing, hand-building clay and painting ceramics. Now Slowfire East, the Oak Park space has been converted to an adults- and members-only studio for about 15 people and now has room for new members.
The new Slowfire West at 7405 Madison St. in Forest Park will host workshops and classes for all ages, plus provide a space for exhibitions and community events.
“Even if it didn’t seem like we were at capacity, we were at capacity with how much we could manage shelf-wise and kiln-wise,” Wright said. “Processing the clay is a lot of work. There’s a lot of time involved in ceramics: Waiting for things to dry, waiting for the kiln, loading and unloading the kiln. … that consumes resources, time and energy, but maybe you don’t see those people in here all the time.”
Part of the reason Wright opened a new location is to accommodate a growing clientele, but also to have space for more types of kilns. Slowfire West boasts two electric kilns, raku firing — “which is basically like fancy trash can firing,” Wright said — and a gas kiln will be shipped and installed off the back of the business in a few weeks. Each kiln can result in different effects for different types of clay.
“You get different effects at the different temperatures, and you also have to use different glazes at the different temperatures. The more temperature range we can offer people, and the more types of firing we offer people, the more they can expand their work,” Wright said. “As long as we keep, on our end, elevating our education, people can learn indefinitely.”
Forest Park’s Slowfire West allows those taking classes to have their own shelves to store their materials. Previously Moss Modern Flowers, the space has a walk-in fridge in the back that students can use as humid, temperature-controlled storage for unfinished projects without their clay drying out — something Wright says was a draw in moving into the space.
“We’re excited about having a bigger space and more opportunities,” Wright said of Madison Street.
Having a second storefront also benefits students and employees that Slowfire has catered to since its inception.
“From the beginning, we had a lot of neurodivergent folks and staff. We’ve always intentionally kept our numbers really low because we’ve needed to be able to support people where they’re at,” Wright said.
Slowfire classes typically have no more than five students to one teacher, many who’ve been with Slowfire since it opened. Wright added that Slowfire has hired extra support staff if needed, without asking families to pay extra.
“I think because we give such individualized attention and small class sizes, we’re very appealing to families who maybe are looking for more education rather than babysitting,” Wright said.
That includes education beyond ceramics. Outside of its busy summer season, Slowfire offers classes in painting, drawing, jewelry making, screen printing and other art mediums. During the summer season, the business has rented out space at The Children’s School in Oak Park for all-day sessions of painting and drawing, ceramics, and music.
In 2020, Wright created the 501c3 Slowfire Arts Foundation as a way to help pay for students who might not be able to afford such classes.
“I knew that if we were going to stay true to our mission to be inclusive, that also meant having to be inclusive socioeconomically,” said Wright of her woman-owned, neurodivergent- and queer-friendly business.
Slowfire regularly holds fundraisers for the Slowfire Arts Foundation. And since Wright was diagnosed with cancer a year ago, and is now in remission, the foundation’s focus has shifted to covering expenses for families affected by cancer.
“Art is healing,” Wright said. “It’s not just art, it’s a community.”