The Fire: A little source of warmth on College Avenue

The mural outside of The Fire. Photo by Blair Vandehey.

Winter break will be upon us Lawrentians soon; the time to kick back after finals week is just around the corner. With the Fall term behind us and the colder months on the way, our schedules will be more open for some much-needed time to decompress. I can think of no better way to not only welcome in the chilly season but also to relax after exams than to warm up at The Fire, an art studio specializing in clay and glass creations just across the street from Colman Hall.  

Audra Haas, the owner, brought The Fire to the avenue after deciding to visit a similar shop in San Diego, CA to paint pottery with her sister. Being able to spontaneously enter a space where she could be creative as well as social, qualities she said “checked all of [her] boxes,” while creating something “functional” inspired her to dream up her own studio. She returned to Appleton, where she was born and raised, and opened The Fire in the mid-2000’s.  

On the surface, Haas explained ‘Fire’ could be interpreted in both a literal and figurative sense. For the former, it is simply a nod to the way a kiln fires pottery. The latter, however, is much more complex than that. Haas drew a comparison between the result of fired clay, which comes out looking much more beautiful than it went in, and humanity; after going through challenging times, or in this case, the figurative ‘fire,’ we as humans have the potential to emerge stronger than before.  

Haas’ own personal ‘fire’ began burning in 2020, when COVID-19 struck the world with uncertainty. Despite the unprecedented challenges it brought to businesses, Haas was able to adapt and take matters into her own hands. The shop began offering curbside pickup and other no-contact artistic services, which helped it make it through the uncertain height of the pandemic. While not every day was easy, Haas found herself “liberated,” learning to accept that some things were beyond her control and to roll with the punches as they came to her. Nowadays, after coming out of the ‘fire’ she finds herself able to run her business more heavily “from a place of ease.”  

The mural outside of The Fire. Photo by Blair Vandehey.

On the subject of fire, the mural outside the shop depicting hot air balloons and soaring firebirds has its own story. In 2010, Haas decided she wanted to paint the side of the building to add more color to the area at a time when there was a lack of public art. When she finished decorating the balloons and establishing the background, however, she thought something was missing. One of her friends’ boyfriends, a muralist from Washington, D.C., approached her and offered to finish it. He completed the finished product and would go on to paint many other murals in Appleton, like the one on the side of Taste of Thai, one at Nakashima and one along the water walk by the Fox River. Last year, she contacted him to extend it, wrapping it around the entryway. Haas mentioned how “surprised” she was that it garnered her such recognition and teased at adding even more of an extension someday. To this day, it is still one of the most defining works of visual art on the Avenue.  

Three different mediums are offered at The Fire: pottery painting, mosaic art and glass fusion (where sheets of glass are decorated and fired together to create pieces of art, such as iridescent windchimes and suncatchers). Everything at the shop is considered to be “entry-level,” so anyone, regardless of artistic ability, can create something beautiful. Both appointments and walk-ins are welcome, something that sets the shop apart from other studios, which usually operate on an appointment basis.  

Getting to watch her visitors open the bag containing their finished work after two weeks of firing them in the kiln, Haas said, is one of the most rewarding parts of working at The Fire. Besides that, the other was seeing people bond over a shared activity, no matter the medium they chose. “It’s not always about the end product.” she declared. “It’s about the process.”  

This mission would not be possible without the staff, who recognize how “intimidating” creating art in a public setting can be. Passionate about the practice themselves, they try their hardest to build a non-judgmental environment where all levels of skill are welcome in the “Fire family.” Being a part of a small staff also helps extend the comfortable atmosphere beyond the staff-visitor relationship to that of staff-staff; the employee base is so tight-knit that one of the managers thinks of the rest of the girls who work there as her “younger sisters.” Haas herself reiterated how proud she is of her staff throughout the interview, using words like “wonderful” freely to express them on many occasions.  

As for us Lawrentians, the sentiment is similar; Haas told me that she takes pride in welcoming us to her establishment. She announced that with the presentation of a valid Lawrence ID, we can enjoy ten percent off any medium offered at The Fire, a warm kickoff to a chilly break.  

From laughing with Haas throughout our interview emerged a third take on the name ‘The Fire’; aside from the external warmth that welcomed me in from a cold Appleton day, there was also that of Haas’ genuine joy of getting to run her business and the handcrafted treasures waiting to be picked up all around the studio. Within one of the bags could be your own creation, too, just on the edge of campus.