Meet Emily Fritze | co-founder of city mud

We had the good fortune of connecting with Emily Fritze and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emily, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
My partner Kyle and I decided to start city mud about a year and a half ago sort of unexpectedly. I had gone to school for studio art and spent the 2 years following trying to make and sell my own work, and Kyle was working an engineering job that had never really been his end goal either. Both of us were in a transitional time and we were ready to take a chance when it came up. I had been looking all over Denver for a pottery studio that fit all of my needs and it was proving hard to find when someone said to me, as a joke, “you should start your own!”. I didn’t really think too much of it, but I told Kyle and he sparked the idea that maybe we actually could do that. We learned together that Denver has a limited amount of ceramic resources and a lot of people who want to work with clay. Realizing that we could open a space that would allow people to explore their creativity and bring more access to the ceramics arts in Denver felt incredible. It really propelled us to take the chance and put everything forward to start city mud.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve always been interested in several different artistic mediums. Being able to think about a creative question through the lens of multiple mediums has always felt exciting to me. I started with ceramics when I was in high school and made mostly functional work, and then in college I started to dabble with clay as more of an artistic medium along side the other art I was making. What I really love about ceramic art is that it’s so often both a piece of art and a functional object. I think there’s something very special about being able to use piece of art, to hold it and make it apart of your every day life.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If a friend was coming to stay I would take them to our studio first! We’d throw pots and hang out there and then maybe get a coffee at Queen City, my favorite. I’d definitely want to take them into the mountains so we’d head out that way, maybe stopping in Georgetown or Idaho springs for a bit along the way. I’d take them to to The Thin Man or Forest Room 5 once we got back for an evening beer to end the night.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I think firstly and most obviously, Kyle my co-founder. We’ve undertaken this entire process together and I couldn’t have done any of this without him. It’s been really important for us to have each other during this process. We think very differently and so when a problem feels unsolvable to me, he usually finds a new way for us to think through it. When things are hard we support each other, and that means the world. Also, our families! Both Kyle and my parents came out to help us work on the space back when it was in a state of total chaos. My dad spent all day in the attic working on our heating system, and Kyle’s mom helped us chip linoleum off of the floor for 8 hours- a saint! Our friends too, have been really key in helping us get started. They’ve let me practice teaching ceramics with them, helped us paint, and our friend Alex has come almost every day and fixed so many problems that I’ve lost count.

Website: citymud.com

Instagram: @citymuddenver