Just bring your creativity, this Delaware store has everything else [video]

Making art can be expensive, at ‘Your Creation Station’ they have everything you need to make almost anything you want.

Steve Datz owns Your Creation Station, a paint your own pottery studio in Middletown. The store is fast becoming much more than just pottery, “More like were becoming a walk in arts studio,” Datz said.

Datz is a potter himself, from first grade through high school he worked with clay. “I got through high school playing football and making pottery.”

Your Creation Station wasn’t his first idea. He worked many jobs over the years, including computer programing, even a stint in the Peace Corps. Datz was working on the idea of a food truck when he decided to open the store.

He restoring an old pick-up truck to pull a BBQ cart, and while waiting for a part, “I thought well you know what I always wanted a potter’s wheel.” From there, Datz bought a kiln, because you really cant have one without the other and started selling his pottery. The idea for the store was always in the back of his mind and he decided to give it a try.

That foundation in pottery is what started the business, and it’s still the store’s main focus. But over the years- over eight now- the types of projects you could do have increased. “My idea was pottery, and then maybe have some other stuff here and there, but I didn’t know what the other stuff was going to be,” Datz said. 

The customers and what they want to do have really dictated the projects themselves. And just who are the customers? Really anyone, from children to grandparents bringing in their grand kids to stretch those creative muscles.

You can pretty much do almost anything from canvas painting, paint your own pottery, tie-dye and fused glass. You just walk in, pick what you want to do and get started, the store has everything else you need.

“Its really for everybody. So long as you’re okay with your three year old painting something, I am too,” Datz said. It’s very much a family friendly atmosphere.

For some people a store like this brings back childhood memories of painting pottery with their parents or grandparents. These kinds of stores are far and few between in today’s hurry up world.

Datz says many people go in thinking they can’t create anything, “and they walk out with the most spectacular things.”

The real payoff to owning a store like this is seeing those people do something creative, especially when they thought they couldn’t. “Something that they thought was beyond their reach, its kind of neat to see that in people,” Datz said.

But the store really isn’t work for him. Datz hears his friends grumbling about corporate meetings and complaining about being in an office. His response? “I’m going to be making 60 tie-dyes today. I’ll sit out in the sun maybe under a canopy with the breeze.”

“Its really a one of a kind place.”

You can get more information on Your Creation Station when you visit them on the web.