Your New Favorite Party Venue

by Amy Daniels

The Painted Peacock is designed for creative expression and a fun time. The paint-you-own-pottery and creative studio has been Greenville’s premiere family art destination for over five years, offering a wide selection of ceramic pieces from coffee mugs and dishware to decorative and pop-culture inspired pieces. The extensive pottery offering now includes “coloring book” pottery, which features permanently raised lines as for ease of painting with phenomenal results.

Friendly studio assistants walk visitors through the paint and glaze selection process, demonstrate fun painting techniques, and provide support to everyone—the creatively-shy included. Studio owner Susan Bucci advocates that everyone is an artist. “I myself am not a painter,” she says, “but I can do it because of the easy and fun techniques and attentive studio assistants.” 

The studio’s board art center is also available to customers who want to create a “Pinterest-Perfect” home décor project. After selecting a board size, crafters select paint colors and use a custom-cut stencil to create their artwork, which can be taken home the same day. Walk-ins for pottery painting are welcome during studio hours; board art is by appointment only.

Adding to the creative studio’s appeal, the Painted Peacock is also a fantastic choice for birthday parties, group social events, and team building with both off-site and in-studio options.

Birthday Parties

For kids and adults wanting to celebrate their special day in a creative way, the Painted Peacock is a favorite place to host birthday parties. The staff handles everything from set-up through clean-up to make the event as easy for the parents as possible. Highly customizable party packages are available for just about any theme imaginable—unicorns, dragons, dinosaurs, princesses, and super heroes are a small sampling of popular children’s party themes. 

The guest of honor is made to feel truly special on their big day at the Painted Peacock. “We have a kiln fairy,” Bucci says with a wink, “and she lets the birthday kid use her sparkly gold brushes.” The guest of honor also gets to ring the birthday gong!

For children ages 3-5 years old, the Painted Peacock offers a pre-school story time party package. “It can be hard to find a party location for little ones,” says Bucci, mother of four-year-old Katie. “Knowing that their attention span is a bit shorter, we shorten the party time. We start off reading a book and then paint pottery based on that story.” The studio has a small library of children’s books to choose from, or parents can bring a book from home. Pre-school parties are typically 60-90 minutes. All the paints are water soluble and non toxic.

2-hour party packages include the Party Animal Package, during which party-goers paint character figurines (animals, princesses, etc.) and the Blow Out Package. “A Blow Out party is great for anyone wanting to paint something larger and more substantial, like a tray or a bank,” Bucci says. 

“A Tween Board Art Bash is the perfect party for tweens who want to have a couple friends come and paint some boards together,” Bucci states. Every member of the party crew gets to choose from a gallery of select designs for tweens and the Painted Peacock staff assist through the whole process. “Using our custom stencils, every board comes out looking perfect every time.”

Ladies’ Night

Studio manager, Ashlea Tievy’s favorite night of the week is Thursday from 6-9pm, also known as Ladies’ Night. This is a perfect time to gathers some friends for some artistic girl time and enjoy a bottle of wine (guests ages 21+ are invited to BYOB) and half-off studio fees. 

“It’s just a fun, easy going night of painting. You can come as an individual, or any size group,” Tievy explains. “It’s meant to be a time to get away, laugh, and let everything go for a little bit.  Get a sitter and come out and have a good time.”

Reservations are encouraged for groups of six or more, and those wanting to paint a board for ladies’ night must schedule an appointment beforehand. 

Team Building

Organizations, businesses and other groups in search of team building activities also have a place at the Painted Peacock. “We offer so many options for team building and we really customize it to the goals of the group. Sometimes groups want to come in a just socialize and paint and have some bonding time together.” The staff is also available to set up and facilitate icebreaker activities before painting pottery or boards.

Pottery projects vary based on the groups’ interest. The studio offers multiple bonding-through-painting activities. “We do a mug swap where everyone paints a mug for themselves. Then they pass the mugs around and everyone writes a word about that person on the mug itself. Later, when they look at their mug, they see all these positive things that their team members had to say about them,” Bucci explains.”

In another pottery painting activity, participants fill out an anonymous questionnaire, the responses to which are all placed in a bowl. Each person picks a card and paints a piece of pottery based on the information from the card. It might have a person’s favorite movies, special interests, or values depicted. Afterward, participants explain the piece they painted and try to guess whom they painted it for.

Board art activities can be completed individually or as a group. Business logos, mission statements, and company values make great pieces to display at the entrance of a business or in an office. For a cooperative group project, participants might not know what image they are creating. “They work with small sections of the stencil, they have no clue what it’s going to make when it’s all done, and then puzzle it together at the end,” says Bucci. 

The Painted Peacock is available to host all types of events, and for event coordinators looking to host an off-site event, Pottery-To-Go offers a portable creative experience for birthday parties, team building, summer camps, church groups, and more. Depending on the size of the event, a Painted Peacock staff member may accompany the mobile studio experience to assist participants through the process. For smaller events, the pottery, paints, and everything needed to complete the activity can be pick up and returned, ready to go into the kiln. Finished pieces are available for pick-up four days later.

The Painted Peacock is located at 631 Red Banks Road ins Greenville’s Arlington Village. For more information, or to schedule an event, visit ThePaintedPeacockNC.com or call 252.758.1100. Walk-ins welcome for paint-you-own-pottery; board art by appointment. Follow the #StayCreativeGreenville on Facebook and Instagram @ThePaintedPeacockNC.