Art lovers and 80s fans alike attended Good Day Pottery & Art Studio on Jan. 30 for a night of pottery painting, pizza, prize giveaways and their favorite tunes from the 80s.
Good Day Pottery & Art Studio is a walk-in-paint-your-own pottery art studio and gift shop with 600 different paint-your-own pottery options to choose from. The studio hosts project nights, themed ticketed events and community programs.
The 80s Paint Party was Good Day Pottery & Art Studio’s first throwback Thursday event of the year. All ages were invited to attend and were encouraged to bring out their best 80s attire.
“We like to have theme parties consistently; we’re gonna do a Throwback Thursday event every month,” said Cat Parton, the owner of Good Day Pottery & Art Studio. “I thought Conway had gotten big enough to where we needed more things to do.”
The party was held in Good Day Pottery & Art Studio’s party room, where customers were served pizza and given an overview of the pottery-painting process to ensure painters had an understanding of how to get the quality they desired before they began painting.
Many attending the party wore statement pieces from the 80s such as sweatbands, neon clothing, teased hair, and bold makeup.
Opportunities for photo-ops were in every corner of the room, where bright posters that read “Totally 80s” and golden tinsel curtains were hung and a multitude of props including neon sunglasses and bracelets were provided on every painting table.
Stencils and templates featuring 80s themes were also offered to the painters to incorporate into their creations, with designs featuring characters from the arcade game Pac-Man as well as rubix cubes and cassette tapes.
Raffle tickets were given to the customers to write their names on and put into a bucket and the tickets were randomly drawn from the bucket periodically throughout the night. Those who had their names drawn from the bucket won prizes such as a free piece of pottery to paint.
As the customers painted, popular music videos from the 80s played on TV at the front of the room.
The music videos brought many of the party’s participants back to their childhoods and evoked feelings of nostalgia for them.
Many recalled times they remembered viewing the videos or hearing the music when they were originally released.
“I was a teenager in the 80s and I loved the music and the freedom,” said Ashley Burnsed, who attended the painting party with her close friends.
Good Day Pottery & Art Studio not only brought back memories for its visitors but also for its owner.
“I am from Conway originally, but I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for about 9 years and I got teenage step-daughters when I lived there who are real artistic,” Parton said. “There was a pottery painting studio there, and we did that to have something fun to do together; I love that I have the memories. We moved back [to Conway] in the summer of 2023 to open the studio.”
At the end of the night, an 80s trivia game was played. Players of the game were asked questions related to 80s music and films and the winning prizes were a poster of John Stamos and a trapper keeper binder.