Steve Stringer works his dream job out of a shed in Melrose Hill.
The five hundred-square-foot outbuilding wasn’t the place Stringer, an L.A.-based ceramicist, imagined organising store. The day he discovered it, he was touring a neighboring Western Avenue property. When that house turned out to be too massive for an artwork studio, the owner instructed Stringer he was free to check out the shed out again.
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Upon first look, the place appeared a bit shoddy, Stringer stated. However it had good bones and a secret treasure form of attraction. He instructed the owner he’d take it.
“But I’m calling it a backhouse,” he stated.
After a monthlong DIY renovation, Steve’s Backhouse opened its doorways in Might. Every month since, Stringer has hosted a slate of inventive workshops — most of them offered out — on the studio, together with his signature Tattoo a Mug class, throughout which individuals beautify mugs hand-spun by Stringer in a patchwork tattoo type.
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Stringer previously took his workshops to classic shops and occasional outlets throughout L.A. Again then, he lugged his provides across the metropolis and did his finest to adapt to no matter seating association his host venue had accessible.
At Backhouse, the ceramicist meticulously created a structure with one thing for everybody: bar seats for singles, a communal desk for socializers and smaller tables for teams and dates. There’s additionally just a few out of doors spots, although these weren’t so intentionally deliberate.
“I’m lucky that the workshops are popular,” stated ceramicist Steve Stringer. “That is how I was able to open this as a business.”
“I accidentally sold eight extra tickets for a class,” he stated, chuckling at himself. So he improvised.
It took Stringer the higher a part of a day to arrange his Tattoo a Mug workshop in mid-September. When he was completed, Backhouse appeared as aesthetically curated as a Michelin-starred restaurant.
All through the room, matching mushroom lamps solid a heat glow over Stringer’s handcrafted wooden tables. Atop them lay 32 equivalent desk settings, every containing a No. 2 pencil, an underglaze pencil, an eraser, a paper towel, a pink clay mug and a flash sheet — a printout of choose Stringer-signature designs, modeled after those created by tattoo artists.
It’s tougher than individuals suppose to give you issues to attract on the spot, Stringer stated earlier than the September workshop, so he gives the flash sheets as inspiration for attendees. This explicit sheet was summer-themed, that includes sketches of shrimp cocktail and a Spongebob Squarepants popsicle.
“I’m not precious about my own art,” he stated. “I don’t mean to undersell it, but I like that people are into it enough to want to put it on their piece too.”
The facade of Steve’s Backhouse options an outsized model of a canine that incessantly seems in Steve Stringer’s artwork, which was painted by Jenna Homen.
Stringer stated he’s at all times had a deal with on his illustration type — quaint, witty and a bit kitschy — however the distinctive look that his ceramics share additionally developed out of necessity.
“It’s pretty tricky to draw on pottery and get it to, like, hold up,” Stringer stated. “So anyway, once I found the materials that worked, that kind of dictated my style. It all looks a little rough — sort of like a kid did it.”
Fiona Chen sketches her mug designs in pencil, step one of the Tattoo a Mug course of.
Recurring motifs, together with a trio of nondescript canine that a number of workshop attendees adopted for their very own mugs, adorned varied Stringer originals strewn about Backhouse.
Stringer constructed many of the studio’s inside himself, save for choose furnishings and an Ikea shelving unit he painted cobalt blue to match the room’s colourful aesthetic. Equal elements whimsical and curated, the house landed visually someplace between a kindergarten classroom and a museum gallery.
It was unmistakably the work of an artist.
“I definitely was always into the art stuff, [but] I didn’t know what path it was gonna take,” Stringer stated. “It turns out it just took every path.”
Till lately, Stringer’s biography was pretty commonplace for a Hollywood transplant.
He bought his grasp’s diploma in screenwriting in Texas, moved to L.A. and grinded at one assistant job after one other earlier than he lastly bought the dream gig in a author’s room, writing on exhibits “Roswell, New Mexico” and “Tell Me a Story.” Then, because the story goes for a lot of in Hollywood, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, triggering an business slowdown and leaving Stringer out of labor.
However then got here the plot twist: Stringer struck gold once more.
At first, ceramics was simply an escape from the monotonous copywriting work Stringer dreaded.
Steve Stringer, heart, instructs an occasion participant throughout his Tattoo a Mug workshop.
“I definitely didn’t envision it as a stream of income. It was therapeutic,” he stated. On high of that, Stringer was on a tattoo kick however too risk-averse to ink anybody however himself. Ceramics have been an ideal substitute.
However Stringer by no means did something midway, stated John Bellina, his longtime buddy and former roommate. The 2 moved collectively to L.A. after finishing the screenwriting grasp’s program on the College of Texas at Austin in 2013.
“Even though I’m not 100% great with the art, I love doing the art stuff and being around people and just doing something creative,” stated Mary Anne Rose, who attended the Tattoo a Mug workshop together with her daughter, Jen Rose.
“He would write an entire album in his room, and I wouldn’t even hear him record it. And it would be fantastically composed,” Bellina stated of his buddy’s many skills. When Stringer sketched, he stated, “it wasn’t just doodles. It was meticulously drawn. And his lines were perfect.”
So when Stringer’s informal interest grew to become a full-fledged enterprise, Bellina stated he wasn’t stunned. The ceramicist’s artwork apply built-in a lot of the work he did earlier than.
Elaine Chen attracts with a pencil on her mug.
As a TV author, Bellina stated, Stringer had a powerful voice and “always could find a way to the joke so quickly.”
It’s the identical method along with his ceramics, which regularly characteristic puns or different quips, Bellina stated. “You have such limited space to make three words really pop and you get exactly what he’s going for,” he stated.
On high of that, Bellina and Stringer, as graduate college students of their early 20s, collectively taught undergraduate screenwriting lessons, “and I guess in a long and roundabout way those terminal degrees came around,” Bellina stated.
Steve Stringer, heart, instructs throughout his Tattoo a Mug workshop.
At his September workshop, Stringer shrugged on the artwork trainer archetype like an outdated sweater. For the primary 5 minutes, he gave a monologue, working his method by way of a step-by-step clarification of the “tattoo” course of, which he stated jokingly, “is not a thing — I just made it up for TikTok.”
“The stakes are low. You can’t really mess it up,” he stated, assuring his pupils. “And if you forget anything, I’m happy to repeat myself. I do it all the time.”
For the following two hours, Stringer roved the room, pausing to sharpen pencils or reward individuals’ designs. When Ellie Alfeld requested whether or not her underglaze pencil strains have been too thick, he assured her they have been excellent.
“Do you have to say that — that it’s perfect?” Alfeld’s girlfriend, Sofia Leimer, requested. Stringer shortly answered, “No,” so earnestly it was unattainable to not imagine him.
Stringer’s favourite spot to linger was within the entrance doorway, the place he may watch over the indoor and out of doors crowds. When somebody known as for him mid-task, he instructed them, “I’ll come back.”
However he by no means hovered, workshop attendee Celine Cormier stated. “He kind of just pops in when you need that support or direction,” she stated.
Lucero Garcia exhibits her “tattooed” mug that matches her arm tattoo.
Cormier has attended a number of of Stringer’s workshops, together with his first Tattoo a Mug class. She stated she retains coming again as a result of, to her, there’s nothing fairly just like the ambiance Stringer creates.
“L.A. and the art scene, it can be a little exclusionary,” Cormier stated.
At Backhouse, the place the door is large open and recent flowers are on the desk, “you almost feel like you’re going to someone’s house,” she stated.
In different phrases, Stringer would possibly make his cash creating and educating ceramics. However “Steve’s main business is the art of bringing people together,” stated Josie Francis, co-founder of inventive arts apply Fuzz & Fuzz and a previous workshop co-host of Stringer’s.
Steve Stringer attracts a number of recurring characters on his ceramics, together with a trio of canine that right here sit at a dinner desk.
Stringer’s ceramics apply additionally orchestrated probability conferences in his personal life.
Bridget Derraugh, Stringer’s girlfriend of almost two years, was casually scrolling on Hinge in spring 2024 when she stumbled throughout a ceramicist whose work appeared acquainted. Finally, she got here to understand she’d used one of many man’s mugs at a buddy’s home just a few days earlier than.
The mug was from the primary market Stringer ever offered at — Derraugh’s buddy had been his first buyer.
The 2 messaged backwards and forwards in regards to the serendipity of all of it, and for sure, “the date went really well,” Derraugh stated, smiling shyly.
When Stringer instructed Derraugh about his concept for Backhouse, she wasn’t positive whether or not it was possible, financially or in any other case.
“But just knowing his personality,” Derraugh stated, “he has the creative side, but he also is a planner and very diligent and attentive to detail — and can be a perfectionist sometimes.
“I was just kind of like, ‘Yeah, if anyone’s gonna do it, it’s you,’” she stated.
Celine Cormier paints a cherry on her mug, which she deliberate to present a buddy as a birthday current.
“In some ways,” Stringer stated, “I feel much more like I was meant to be doing this. I loved TV writing when I was doing it, but I like looking back, maybe I never fully fit in.”
Proper now, Stringer is ramping up on wholesale offers and trying to check out a drop-in type mannequin at Backhouse. He’s undecided what’s subsequent for the place, however he’s glad that not like when he labored within the leisure business, he’ll get to make that call when the time comes.
“For good reason, TV has structure and rules,” he stated. “But I get to make up the rules here.”
