Nutmeg Potters starts Kickstarter campaign

WINSTED — Nutmeg Potters owner Deborah McNulty has started a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund equipment purchases for her store, located at 386 Main St.The store opened in mid-December, and McNulty said business has taken off.“We have had a lot of customers and a lot of foot traffic coming in,” McNulty said. “It has gone very well for us and it is very exciting.”The store offers unique clay items handmade at the store, including plates, vases, dishes and bowls. It also offers pottery classes for both children and adults.Since she opened the store, McNulty has installed new flooring and masonry. Earlier this month she installed a kiln so pottery artists can fire their creations at the store.“We worked very closely with the town’s building inspector and fire marshal to make sure everything has been set up to building code,” McNulty said. “We love our neighbors dearly, so we installed a special passive ventilation system so none of the exhaust fumes will bother anyone.”McNulty said she would like to continue to push the store forward in a positive direction by purchasing more equipment, which is why she started the Kickstarter campaign.Kickstarter.com is a website which started in 2009 in order to fund creative projects. The site has helped fund more than 135,000 projects, including albums, books, stage projects, comic books, video games and technology-related projects.Each Kickstarter project is given a page where a description of the proposal is detailed. Donors are allowed to give money for the project and can buy into gifts for certain donation levels determined by the project’s originator.With her Kickstarter project, McNulty wants to raise money to pay for an electrician’s bill for previous electric work, hire a plumber to install two utility sinks with clay traps, purchase a spray booth in order to layer glazes for projects, purchase two “Cinks,” which is a standalone sink with a filter system that keeps clay and substrate out of the store’s plumbing, and purchase a new sign for the store.In all, McNulty set a goal of $7,000 for the Kickstarter project. If McNulty reaches her goal by Friday, April 4, her project will be funded. However, if she does not reach her full amount by April 4, she will not receive any money.As of the morning of Wednesday, March 19, the project has received $1,963 in contributions.“It’s all or nothing,” she said. “If we get nothing, we might launch another Kickstarter project asking for less. The truth is that people do not have to donate hundreds of dollars. If one person can just tell eight of their friends, and those eight friends donate $10 each, and then maybe those friends can tell their friends, we might be able to be successful.”The Nutmeg Potters Kickstarter page is at www.kickstarter.com/projects/2112345645/nutmeg-potters-comes-to-winsted-ct.