Christmas Tree and Incense Workshop: Saturday 11/7, 3-5pm

Christmas trees and incense, oh my! Join Maike Kowal in the pottery studio first and get creative making your hand built one-of-a-kind Christmas Tree incense holders (up to four) and then join Andrea Davis of Motherland Essentials in the adjacent classroom to make your own incense cones (multiple scents to choose from!) Meet the Teachers Maike and Andrea: Maike has been clay sculpting since a very young age. The process of manipulating clay into a recognizable form is exciting to her and she loves sharing her knowledge to hopefully ignite a similar passion for working with clay in others. Maike is also the head of our pottery program (family) at Public Works Art Center. I started Motherland Essentials in 2015 after experiencing the loss of my son, Elijah, 20 weeks into my pregnancy the year prior. I didn’t receive resources for mental health, so I decided to lean into creative self-care to help me find community and provide a way for me to not feel so bad during a really heavy time. I found soap-making videos on YouTube, and after my first batch (which was really bad), I was hooked and determined to perfect the craft. After sharing my journey on Instagram, building my self-care community and perfecting many more batches of soap, I decided to open my business and introduce creative self-care to others. Through my work, I have been blessed with partnerships and features with Brambleberry, Wholesale Supplies Plus, BuzzFeed, Essence, Apartment Therapy, and more. However, I am most proud to contribute to community organizations such as Mugs 4 Moms, Fresh Future Farms, and the Avery Research Center for African American History & Culture, many others. Through my art of soap-making and opportunities to teach in my creative self-care studio and virtually, our mission is to provide collective community care by way of quality products and educational creative self-care workshops.