Couple Michael Burt and Nancy Westvig own Fired Up, Iowa’s first-ever pottery studio, which opened in 1998.

Fired Up, 520 E. Washington St., was a residence when it was built in 1875. Next, it was the city’s credit union building. Now, it is home to a variety of pieces available for customers to purchase and paint themselves.
Julia Truszkowski, a 19-year-old Iowa City resident, has been going to the studio since she was 7. Last week at the shop, she was painting herself a coffee mug, which is rare.
“I usually give my pieces as gifts, so I can’t count how many I’ve done,” she said.
One thing that keeps her going back to Fired Up so often, she said, is Ukie, the owners’ dog, which is at the shop every day.
Customers choose bisque, or pottery pieces, and then pick the colors of paint they want. They spend however long they need to complete their art, then leave it in the hands of the shop for completion for about a week.
The art gets dipped in clear gloss, then fired in a kiln, located in a back room, at 1,818 degrees Fahrenheit.
Twenty percent of the pottery pieces are handmade, and the rest is bought from other countries.
“We have strictly functional pottery,” Burt said.
Westvig said, “Everything that is painted here is something people can actually use when they get home. We really don’t market to kids, like figurines.”
Popular items offered include bowls, cups, and plates.
One example of pieces offered is “will you marry me plates” on which a fiancé will decorate plates for his future wife to use at a restaurant.
Fired Up offers its space for wedding showers and birthday parties, in which hosts will have 20 to 30 guests create gifts and souvenirs. Guests include people ages anywhere from 5 to 55 years old.
Additionally, students involved in greek life have been on outings to paint.
“Only one fraternity [has been here]; I’m not quite sure why, because we do have beer mugs,” Burt said. “Like beer steins, and wine glasses, and shot glasses.”
Fired Up spent its first 13 years downtown, near the Iowa City Public Library. One of the customers’ major complaints was about the lack of convenient parking, Westvig said.
“When this space became available, we thought it was a great solution,” she said. “We have parking for eight cars. A lot of our folks come from small towns. They travel to come to paint pottery, and they don’t want to deal with parking, so this just makes it easy for them.”
Prior to owning the business, the couple lived in Southern California, painting pottery in their garage with friends. Now, they get to do it for a living.
Westvig, who has a degree in counseling, says painting pottery is therapeutic.
“It can be a really releasing [activity],” she said. “People who work and don’t have anything to show for their time, sitting down and focusing on something else and not thinking about that other stuff [is relaxing].”
She said people come in on dates to decompress during finals week.
Harry Manaligod, an 18-year-old customer, said he is a repeat customer because he likes to unwind.