Mmmm, buy the bowl, get the soup Saturday at Hudgens

Here’s an appetizing deal for these hard times: Buy a handmade bowl or mug at the Hudgens Center for the Arts’ Soupbowl Benefit on Saturday and get soup, chili or a beverage to fill it up at no extra charge.

And if you’re hungry to contribute to a good cause, you’ll get fed that way too, as the event is a fund-raiser for the Gwinnett County arts center’s Education Department.

The Hudgens will have more than 300 bowls and mugs for sale, created by staff or students of its popular ceramics program or donated by metro potters.

“They’re in a huge variety of styles and colors and even shapes, some decorated, some carved,” says Hudgens spokeswoman Kelly Haggard Olson.

Early birds get first choice of the pieces, for $30 each, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. From 1:30 to 5 p.m., the price is $25.

The benefit will feature live music, pottery wheel demonstrations and studio tours, and a silent auction of additional pottery, drawings, textile items and more.

Also happening at the Hudgens on Saturday is a Family Day project (10 a.m.-noon) in which participants will create large-scale collaborative abstract expressionist paintings that will be donated to Gwinnett’s Peachtree Ridge schools cluster. Because of the two big events, admission fees are waived Saturday, and all exhibits are free as well.