In 1991 a young woman named Emily Goodman opened a small ceramic shop in New York City called Pullcart. Unlike most ceramic studios of the day, you could customize dishware there; they imported unfinished plates from Italy and customers would paint them. Word slowly spread of this unique activity, and a couple of Pullcart customers opened a similar shop on LaBrea Avenue in Los Angeles, and called it Color Me Mine. The owners, Josh Culver and Robin Monroe, were always accompanied by their big white cockatoo who shared days in the small artspace. And like Pullcart, the owners were also the staff.
Jennifer Kurtz worked down the street at Paramount Studios as a production coordinator. She had long been taking ceramics classes, but her production schedule was too unpredictable, and she frequently missed classes and was left with unfinished projects and unused supplies. Discovering Color Me Mine as it opened was a revelation! She became the first employee, moonlighting after work at Paramount, and evangelizing the new concept widely. She brought her then-boyfriend, Michael Rubin into the scene, and the group of four improved the operation, added marketing and data collection, and began expansion plans; in particular to open a second Color Me Mine location. Jennifer felt strongly the improved execution of the concept needed to be in an upscale and well-trafficed neighborhood, not sequestered in an art district. The second CMM opened two blocks from Jennifer's residence on Montana Avenue, in Santa Monica in 1993.
Kurtz and Rubin had disagreements with Culver and Monroe, and the two couples went their separate ways. Kurtz and Rubin moved north to the San Francisco Bay Area, launched Petroglyph, and got married. Petroglyph was intended to be larger than Color Me Mine (often twice the size), more oriented to adults rather than kids, with a more sophisticated design to reflect the cool nature of the products people created.
By 1996 Monroe and Culver sold their three Color Me Mine studios to the fast-food chain Koo Koo Roo, which slowly added the locations until they neared bankruptcy in 1998 and sold the ceramic painting business to Versent, a Canadian game distributor hoping to get into the crafts industry. Mike Mooslin, a senior executive at Koo Koo Roo, led the new company. By the end of 1996 there were almost 100 contemporary ceramics studios in operation, and the CCSA was formed. By 1997 the CCSA held its first convention, in Dallas, and Emily Goodman closed the original Pullcart, to instead focus on importing Italian bisque to supply the growing industry.
By the end of 1999, Versent sold off Color Me Mine to new investors, led by the existing CMM management; CEO Mooslin refocused the company on franchised locations and rapidly expanded globally. In just a few years Color Me Mine would hit its stride, with hundreds of franchised studios, in an industry of almost 2000 ceramics studios worldwide.