January is Manitou Art Center Month in the Pikes Peak Bulletin
In the town that owns the weirdness it’s characterized by, no place quite encapsulates the creative, quirky spirit of Manitou Springs quite like the Manitou Arts Center. A local staple for nearly four decades, the MAC offers classes, workshops and creative spaces to the community along with a series of galleries to house the works of creatives across the Pikes Peak Region and beyond.
When I moved to Colorado Springs now three years back, I yearned for a space like the Manitou Arts Center. Instead, I created alone, isolated in my apartment. When I finally discovered the space a year into living in the region, I kicked myself for not discovering the power of its community-binding nature sooner. In the spirit of ensuring no one makes the same mistake I did when I was new to our ever-growing city, each week of January the Pikes Peak Bulletin will highlight a MAC artist and their respective makerspace, kicking the series off with a profile of glass artist Jannine Scott, and one of the MAC’s longest running gallery spaces, the First Amendment Gallery.
Abbey Soukup
MAC Month: Pottist Colin Davis makes and teaches art
Pottist Colin Davis carries a passion for creating and a passion for encouraging others to create as well.
As the only current pottery teacher residing at the Manitou Art Center, Davis said his path to developing his pottery skillset and teaching was not a linear journey, but one full of time spent creating, and time away from the craft as well.
Working with clay in the art of wheel throwing, Davis’s pots play with shape and color, both in form and in the texture of his works final product which often boast unique geometric patterns and shapes whether it be on bowls, vases or mugs.
Davis began his ceramics journey amid his junior year of high school, spending much of his adolescence exploring a variety of mediums including music and photography.
“I’ve always been interested in art. I was involved in the arts at a very young age. I always liked to draw and play with Lego, which translated well to clay as an adult, sculpting or building something that’s 3-D,” Davis said.
“My sophomore year (of high school) I took a photography class, and you had to walk through the ceramics studio to get into the photo room. And it was the same teacher. I remember seeing people doing it and just thinking how cool it looked. And so, the next semester I signed up for a pottery class. I really enjoyed it and found it very therapeutic,” Davis continued.
Through his developing passion and an encouraging teacher, during that initial class he decided he wanted to make and teach art for a living, beginning the journey to where Davis can be found today at the MAC, and at the Bemis School of Art in Downtown Colorado Springs.
“I got a lot of support from my ceramics teacher in high school because I was practicing and getting better. My teacher would say, you know, if you keep doing this, think about what you’re going to make in 10 years,” Davis said.
After high school, Davis spent time studying at university, however, he wound up dropping out of school and taking a hiatus from art.
“I was on hiatus most of my 20s, unfortunately. I just got distracted, made some poor life decisions and what have you. My teacher in high school encouraged me to be a teacher, but school didn’t really work out for me,” Davis said.
Just before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Davis said he had a reunion with pottery and discovered the studio space at the MAC. Now, he’s doing what he always wanted to do, he just got there on a different path than expected.
“Sometimes, I think about going back to school, but I kind of just want to teach my classes now, because I’m building up the MAC’s programming. That’s what I’m trying to do anyhow, and I think I am succeeding in that,” Davis said. “I’m still doing what I always wanted to do – not just making art but teaching it. Right now, I’m really just trying to engage in that adventure.”
Davis said he plans to run his beginner and intermediate pottery wheel throwing classes, which run four weeks consecutively, through the remainder of winter and spring at the MAC. A year into his teaching, Davis said he’s now seeing a few returning students – a rewarding aspect of the profession.
“That’s exciting for me, that I’m getting people who are interested in pottery enough to want to return, not only to have me teach them but also to come in and work on their own at the MAC. It makes me feel good that I got their curiosity to peak and interested enough to come back in. That’s what my teachers always did for me; they offered me that support and encouragement. I try to do the same thing for my students and make it a big part of their lives. That’s what excites me about teaching, is getting someone involved in something that could possibly change their life because it changed mine,” Davis said.
Davis encourages people to sign up for one of his classes by plugging the idea of creating and working with your hands, something he believes folks don’t get to do often enough these days.
“It’s really important to work with your hands, at least to me it’s a huge part of living. If I can inspire someone to get off the couch and take a class or come in and create, that’s good enough for me,” Davis said.
For more information on ceramics and signing up for one of Davis’s classes at the MAC, visit ManitouArtCenter.org More of Davis and his work can be found on his Instagram account, @colin.davis.ceramics.
