A Vintage Letterpress Studio in Waxhaw
A half-century-old ceramics school, a vintage letterpress studio just south of the city, a full-contact skate league, and the Charlotte muralist behind some of Uptown's most recognizable public art.
Four picks this week: where to actually make something, where to hit someone, and a Charlotte artist you've probably already seen without knowing his name.
CHARLOTTE FAVORITE
Clayworks has been teaching clay on Monroe Road for close to fifty years and runs one of the largest nonprofit ceramics programs in the country. Multi-week wheel classes book up, but the free community workshops and the raku firings are open to anyone paying attention.
OVERLOOKED
Old North State Press is a working letterpress studio in Waxhaw, just south of the city, built around a fully restored 1964 Heidelberg Windmill, a Vandercook No. 3, and two Monotype Thompson Sorts Casters. Founder Chris Paul learned to print at Yale before setting up shop here in 1998. Visits are by appointment.
GET MOVING
Charlotte Roller Derby is skater-owned, full-contact, and has been at it since 2006. Bouts land at Grady Cole Center; the home teams are the NoDa Narwhals, Ballantyne Bombers, and South End Sirens. They train new skaters too, if watching stops being enough.
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
Marcus Kiser is the Charlotte-born artist behind murals at Camp North End and one of the panels on the Uptown "Black Lives Matter" street mural, Afrofuturist, comic-influenced work you've probably walked past without knowing his name. Follow @marcus_kiser for the next one.
Charlotte's Own Dark-Sky Observatory
A 1954 stargazing club with its own dark-sky observatory, a tiny pottery studio that caps its classes, a beginner aerial gym, and a Charlotte potters' guild that runs the fall pottery festival.
Monday Night Contra Dancing
A fiber guild older than most of the neighborhood, a Matthews board-game cafe, a Monday-night contra dance with a live caller, and a Charlotte fiber artist turning felt into wall-sized sculpture.
Learn to Row on the Catawba
A rockhound club that meets at a senior center, the city's oldest disc golf course, a learn-to-row program on the Catawba, and a hiking club that'll get you outside with company.