Five minutes from the South Austin garage where her mother first taught pottery classes in 2008, Kaiya Emmert spent Saturday morning back in the neighborhood she grew up in — this time as the general manager of the studio’s third location. 

The Art Garage’s new location on Brodie Lane celebrated its grand opening this weekend. 

The Art Garage started as a passion project in 2008 and grew into a commercial studio by 2011. Emmert studied Human Dimensions of Organizations at UT before leaving school to work alongside her mother, eventually helping open a second Art Garage location on North Lamar Boulevard in 2023. Now, she helps lead three storefronts and her customers watch it grow alongside her. 

Rather than centering Saturday’s event on its own expansion, the studio shared the event with other Austin businesses, inviting several local vendors with family-owned shops in the area.

“I wanted to definitely include other small businesses and other local women-owned businesses,” Emmert said. “I also loved that all of the owners or co-owners are mamas, so everybody has kiddos. … I thought that was really special.”

That emphasis on community extended beyond the studio’s doors. Peaches Coffee, MK Tattoos and King of Pops joined the celebration. Chloe Wright, who has worked at the Art Garage for three years, said the studio sharing the spotlight reflects its role in the neighborhood as one piece of a larger network.

“It’s all about community,” Wright said. “We’re new to the area, and there’s lots of local small businesses just like our own. We want to spread that love, and we want to be able to share with those businesses to boost them so we can boost each other as well.”

For one of the vendors, that community relationship went both ways. Adam Scher, who co-owns King of Pops with his wife, knew the Art Garage as a customer years before the two businesses worked together.

“Our kids had gone to the Art Garage for camps and events, so we are already big fans,” Scher said. “We reached out to them, and it worked out that they had been looking for a dessert vendor to join them with that grand opening.”

Now that the grand opening is over, Emmert said she is most looking forward to seeing the new studio fill with people more regularly. The Brodie Lane location will host upcoming sip-and-paint events, children’s classes, birthday parties and other group events.

“Where the joy comes for me is the people interaction and making people’s days and helping people with their art projects,” Emmert said. “That’s where I get my love and joy from the job.”

For Emmert, Saturday’s opening also meant reconnecting with the community where she first began working for the family business. After spending years at the original South Austin studio, she moved north to help open the North Lamar location and lost touch with some of the customers she grew up knowing. Even a few friends from Texas Darlins, the UT spirit organization she joined as a freshman, showed up to support her.

“There were so many customers that I haven’t seen in four to 10 years that I got to see at the opening,” Emmert said. “It was so fun to see people that still support us and come out and celebrate the space with us.”