Rachel Rivera sat at a bench in The Rivet’s pottery studio, painting delicate touches of colored glazes on her hand-built, realistic-looking humpback whale after it was bisque fired in the pottery kiln.
“I moved here from Hawaii and a lot of my stuff is ocean and sea-based,” she says. “I worked here last year in science education for STEM camp, then signed up for the makerspace. This is the first thing I ever made with clay.
“It’s so affordable. I live in a really small apartment. I don’t have the space for craft supplies. This was the only place in central Pennsylvania that has an open kiln where you can bring your stuff to fire.”
She says the makerspaces where she plans to go to graduate school are expensive. “I only pay $25 a month here. I’m very appreciative of this place and don’t think I can find anything like it anywhere else.”
The Rivet, a…
