In 2024 The Clay Studio will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Founded around the same time as the American Ceramic Circle, The Clay Studio represents another facet of the ACC’s mission, to study and appreciation ceramics. With our focus on contemporary ceramics, we strive to support and engender a passion for ceramics in artists and collectors who will continue and expand the community of ceramic enthusiasts. In order to honor the half century of work that has transformed a shared studio space with five artists into a 28 staff member, internationally recognized arts institution that directly serves upwards of 10,000 people each year, we will spend the entire year presenting our past, present, and future through exhibitions and programs. The series of exhibitions will highlight Our Community, The Clay Studio Founders & Foundations, Current Residents, our Alumni, and ground-breaking artists who are looking toward the future. The exhibitions will be paired with public programs including our annual Clay Fest, a Community Dinner, Free hands-on programming every week, and Listening Sessions.
The Future of Clay is the final exhibition in the series. Slated to open in October 2024, it will be a major exhibition featuring ground-breaking, contemporary ceramic art that fully embraces a community-centered, collaborative curation and design process. The Future of Clay will be planned over the next 18 months, resulting in a world-class exhibition built by a consortium of constituents highlighting the value and feasibility of designing exhibitions in partnership with the community. The Future of Clay honors the next chapter of our organizational evolution through both the final exhibition and the exhibition design process, and therefore is a fitting way to cap our 50th Anniversary celebrations.
As The Clay Studio celebrates its 50th anniversary we are thinking as much about the next 50 years as we are about the past. Ceramic art represents both a link to the past, in the continued creation of simply decorated vessels, as well as the future, through new applications of computer aided design, 3-D printing, and the pursuit of using ceramic art as a vehicle for contemporary social issues. We must celebrate our past, while honoring our mission by continuing to stay relevant, investigate what is exciting in clay right now and contemplate its potential to change in the future. We will engage collaborating curators in order to ensure that our view of the field is wide and our Council to remain relevant to our neighborhood and beyond. It is essential for The Future of Clay to include artists who are working at the cutting edge of what is possible in ceramic art, looking toward the future of this ancient art medium, as well as being representative of the field of clay and our various constituent groups.
