News Media
- 2024 January | Metro Philadelphia The Clay Studio Unveils new exhibits this Weekend
- 2024 January | Arts News Now The Clay Studio Hosts 50th Anniversary Celebration
- 2024 January | 6ABC – The Clay Studio 50th Anniversary Launch Event
- 2024 January | NBC10 – The Clay Studio 50th Anniversary Launch
- 2024 January | 6ABC: The Clay Studio celebrates 50th Anniversary with Founders & Foundations
- 2023 December | Fox29 Craft Holiday Shopping
- 2023 December | Ceramics Studio brings the healing powers of clay
- 2023 October | The Clay Studio is featured on WHYY's Infinite Art Hunt
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Check out this episode of The Infinite Art Hunt, a WHYY created kids show that has been picked up nationally, when the kids learn how to throw on the wheel and check out the gallery!
- 2023 October | Press Release Major PEW Center for Arts & Heritage Grant Award
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The Clay Studio is excited to announce that we have been awarded a major grant of $354,500 from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage to support Clay as Care, an exhibition that examines how care manifests in ceramic art. The grant offers project funding that will support the Clay as Care exhibition, research, publication, and symposium in 2025, along with an additional 20% unrestricted, general operating support.
At the core of Clay as Care is the work of Adebunmi Gbadebo, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, and Ehren Tool, groundbreaking artists who address care, healing, rest, and resilience in their work. These artists acknowledge and access qualities of care for themselves in making their art, and therefore communicate aspects of care to their audiences. Gbadebo harvests clay from the plantation where her family was enslaved to create vessels as an act of healing for the memory of her ancestors. Datchuk creates work with images representing her journey with fertility-related medical procedures, and builds spaces for contemplation. Tool, a veteran, has made over 250,000 cups during his artistic life and says that his “process is therapeutic - and the cups are a kind of catharsis in clay.”
In addition to the artists, co-curators Jennifer Zwilling and Nicole Pollard, along with our Community Exhibition Council, staff, members of the care movement, and scientists researching the connections between art and care, will explore how we may offer the visitor ways to engage in acts that combine clay and care within the gallery. The exhibition will push beyond traditional methods of displaying art to create new systems of engagement for visitors that include viewing, creating, and engaging in moments of rest.
Care is at the center of The Clay Studio’s ethos since its inception in 1974; we are excited to explore this idea with our collaborators as we begin our next half century. We are deeply grateful to The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage for their major support for this project.
- 2023 October | Metropolis Magazine "The Clay Studio Puts Down New Roots"
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Click Here to Read the Article by Sarah Archer
Walk up North American Street in Olde Kensington, Philadelphia, and a sharp figure will catch your eye: It’s Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, the leader and founding member of The Roots, depicted majestically on the side of a decorated Sèvres vase. Artist Roberto Lugo’s mural—four stories high, saturated with joyous color, and full of references to Black creative excellence and historical ceramics—is the perfect introduction to the beehive of creative activity unfolding inside the building. Walk up to the front entrance and you might pass an artist throwing pots just behind a street-level window; then you’ll encounter a retail space full of handmade functional pottery for sale.
- 2023 January | WHYY: "Art that stares back"
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A quote by Jennifer Zwilling featured in the WHYY article said, “We wanted people to feel welcome; that when they came in they could both find someone that looked like them and also feel connected to the figures that don’t look like them because of other reasons — the emotion that’s being shown and feeling connected and having a meaningful experience.”
- 2023 January | Dr. Kelli Morgan & Jennifer Zwilling featured on the Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast
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This episode of Tales of a Red Clay Rambler podcast features the co-curators of Figuring Space, Dr. Kelli Morgan and Jennifer Zwilling in which they discuss the historical use of the figure to portray power, the variety of sculptural approaches used by the featured artists, and The Clay Studio’s recent move to South Kensington.
- 2022 September | "Philadelphia Excellence" in Metro Philadelphia
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View the article here to read more about Philadelphia Excellence" which features work by Leroy Johnson, Nate Willever, Andrea Marquis, and Better Lovers.
- 2021 September | A Proper Send-off at The Clay Studio featured in Ceramics Now
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View the article here to read about the exhibition, "A Proper Send off".
- 2021 May | Press Release for "Making Place Matter"
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view the press release here
- 2021 May | "Making Place Matter" in Philadelphia Weekly
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view .pdf of article here
- 2019 October | Major Pew Grant Awarded to The Clay Studio
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Making Place Matter will be an ambitious and experimental six-month exhibition, symposium and publication that will inaugurate The Clay Studio’s (TCS) newly built home in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, set to open in Spring 2021. As TCS begins this new chapter in its own history, the idea of ‘place’ takes on critical importance as we seek to understand and grow into our new home.
- 2019 September | PA State Senator Larry Farnese visits Clay Fest!
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in First District Connection, Larry Farnese writes, "I had a great time on Saturday, September 17, 2019 visiting Clay Fest 2019 in South Kensington! It’s incredible to see the Clay Studio bringing the community together to participate in fun activities including group sculpting, artist demonstrations, music, and food. Thank you to the Clay Studio for hosting me at the festival!" view photo album >
- 2019 February | American Craft Magazine: "Connect, Then Curate"
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"Connect, Then Curate" by Jennifer Zwilling. Curators implicitly tell the public what matters. Here’s what happened when one curator asked her community what matters to them.
- 2019 January | American Craft Inquiry: "Craft History's Moment"
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read Jennifer Zwilling's article, "Craft History's Moment" in this issue of American Craft Inquiry >
- 2018 Sept 29 - Nov 18 | Making A Difference Reviews
- 2018 November 2 | Jennifer Zwilling interview by Channel 17 about CraftNOW
- 2018 September 20 | Claymobile Highlighted on CBS News
- 2018 September 29 | Our 4th Annual CLAY FEST
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read all the details of the day in this press release
- 2018 September 15 | Fall Arts Preview highlights The Clay Studio's Making a Difference
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By and large, this is a season of art for art's sake. Vivid color is in full force, especially in painting, but also in the eye-popping quilts of Mary Lee Bendolph of Gee's Bend, Ala., which have taken over Swarthmore College's List Gallery and McCabe Library.
Activism-motivated art is less prominent than some might expect, considering the events of the last six months, but it's the backbone of the Clay Studio's group show "Making a Difference: Social and Political Activism in Clay" and the heart and soul of Leroy Johnson's large charcoal drawings at Grizzly Grizzly, critiquing the politics of exclusion through images of a feral dog navigating the inner city.
- 2018 July | Glenn Adamson writes in Crafts Magazine about Roberto Lugo
- 2018 June 27 | Al Dia | Clay Studio invites community to help mold its future
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Through a series of Clay and Conversation workshops, the nonprofit is inviting community members to participate and give feedback for what they want to see when the Clay Studio opens a new ceramics center in South Kensington in 2020.
- 2018 June 26 | Philadelphia Inquirer | "Pottery Saved My Life"
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Roberto Lugo was sitting at a pottery wheel he’d planted on a barren triangle of concrete at Tusculum and Somerset in Kensington. One after another, cars passing through the intersection pulled up, real slow. Read More
- 2018 June 24 | ArtBlog | The Clay Studio National juried show features diverse approaches to ceramic art
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Deb Krieger visits the Clay Studio’s biannual juried show of American ceramic art, “The Clay Studio National,” open May 26th - July 15th. She reports back on the wide range of practices in contemporary clay, from the abstract to the figurative and from the formal to the political.
- 2018 February 22 | “The Clay Studio is moving from its Longtime Old City Home”
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Philadelphia Inquirer | The Clay Studio is moving from its longtime Old City home
- 2018 February 21 | “Bursting at the Seams,” Clay Studio Plans Move
- 2017 July 24 | "Old City’s arts community finds its way amid a sea of change"
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philly.curbed.com | Old City’s arts community finds its way amid a sea of change
- 2017 July 24 | "Magdalene Odundo at The Clay Studio"
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Artblog | Magdalene Odundo, at The Clay Studio
- 2017 June 22 | "Making Place Matter"
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Pew Center for Arts & Heritage | Making Place Matter
The New Building
- 2022 June 3 | Roberto Lugo Mural is featured on WHYY
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View the article here
- 2022 April 15 | WHYY: "The Clay Studio opens new building in Kensington, for Kensington"
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"This building is a new start for the Clay Studio. The 48-year-old organization has been cramped in a double-wide storefront building on 2nd Street since 1980. This building on North American Street is not only purpose-built from the ground up to give the organization more room – going from 21,000 to 34,000 square feet – but allows the Clay Studio to engage in what Martin calls 'radical hospitality.'"
View the article here
- 2022 April 11 | Philadelphia Magazine: A Look Inside The Clay Studio’s Massive New Space in South Kensington
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"The new four-story facility expands the organization's studio, classroom and gallery space — and its plans for community outreach."
View the article here
- 2022 April 8 | Philly Voice: The Clay Studio's new building in South Kensington features more classrooms, artist workspace
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"'We know the transformative power of clay and look forward to sharing our love for the material and its creative possibilities with our neighbors, local partners and the larger community in this inspiring new building,' Deputy Director Josie Bockelman said."
View the article here
- 2022 April 5 | Philadelphia Business Journal: First look Inside The Clay Studio's new $14.5M South Kensington arts building
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View the photos here
- 2022 March 21 | Al Día: The Clay Studio in Philly to open new, 34,000-square-foot South Kensington location
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"The Clay Studio upholds a model of using clay as a 'force for good,' welcoming systems of change into their framework."
View the article here
- 2022 March 4 | The Architect's Newspaper: The Clay Studio reflects skilled craftwork inside and out in Philadelphia’s South Kensington neighborhood
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"As the facade couldn’t protrude any further out, the design focused on trying to represent the clay-making process on a flat facade. This led DIGSAU to select two types of brick: a buff-toned brick to represent unglazed bisqueware, and a bright orange brick to represent work that has been glazed and fired."
View the article here
- 2021 May 17 | Our new building is featured in "The Architect's Newspaper"
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"Work is underway on The Clay Studio, a 34,000-square-foot ceramic facility in Philly’s South Kensington neighborhood. Grayish bricks are used on the building’s outer walls, while public spaces and a roof garden are lined with sculpted clay tiles. For Unkefer, who was a professional potter before pivoting to architecture, the project by DIGSAU architects “offered an opportunity to connect my interest in ceramics to the city’s incredible tradition of brick masonry.”
view the article here >
- 2020 January | Press Release for the New Building
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View the press release here
- 2022 January 24 | WHYY: Clay Studio nearing its $14.5 million move to Kensington
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View the article here
Annual Reports
- 2023 Annual Report
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view | FISCAL YEAR 2023 | June 1, 2022 - May 31, 2023
- 2017 Annual Report
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view | FISCAL YEAR 2017 | June 1, 2016 - May 31, 2017
- 2016 Annual Report
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FISCAL YEAR 2016 | June 1, 2015 - May 31, 2016
- 2015 Annual Report
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view | FISCAL YEAR 2015 | June 1, 2014 - May 31, 2015
- 2014 Annual Report
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view | FISCAL YEAR 2014 | June 1, 2013 - May 31, 2014
- 2013 Annual Report
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view | FISCAL YEAR 2013 | June 1, 2012 - May 31, 2013
- 2012 Annual Report
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view | FISCAL YEAR 2012 | June 1, 2011 - May 31, 2012