Present: Mari Emori, April Zilber, Sally Jackson (recorder), Ren Lee, Emil Yanos, Vicki Gunter, Cheryl Costantini, Chris Johnson, Susie Rubenstein, Iver Hennig, Joe Battiato, Trudy Chiddix, Barbara Prodaniuk (Absent: Sonja Hinrichsen, Lee Middleman, Jan Schachter)
Guest: Julie Taber
The meeting commenced at 5:30 p.m.
Welcome (Mari)
Treasurer’s Report (April)
April introduced ACGA member Julie Taber, who will be taking over the position of Treasurer. Julie is a ceramic artist in Altadena, CA, and she has extensive experience as a bookkeeper for nonprofits. Thank you, Julie, and welcome!
Our total assets as of February 28th are $117,651. This has been boosted lately by booth fees received for the festival in July. Our 2022 tax information has been submitted to our CPA. We discussed the possibility of giving our members the option to pay a little extra when using PayPal to cover its processing fees.
Festival Report (April)
April reported that 98 artists have signed up for the 2023 Palo Alto Clay & Glass Festival in July. We discussed how to staff Clay-for-All in the courtyard, and how to ensure that the courtyard is properly cleaned up afterwards. We discussed having demos outside this year to attract more attention. We also discussed how to recognize new festival artists, how to select Best-in-Show artists, and how best to collect and enter contact information for those who sign up on our mailing list. The auditorium will be available possibly as a cool place for visitors to sit and eat. Messenger Events will try to address problems we had last year with unsecured fire extinguishers and rutted spots on the grounds.
Membership (Emil)
ACGA’s website feature “Artist of the Month” has thus far been populated by a small pool of members who have volunteered for the honor. When this feature was introduced, we expected more members to embrace the opportunity, but response has been sparse, leaving us with fewer choices. Some on the Board believe that only festival-eligible artists should be featured as Artist of the Month, whereas other Board members who actively exhibit, but do not plan to jury into the festival, would like the Artist of the Month to be chosen from a broader pool. We will continue discussions to resolve this issue in a future meeting.
“Meet-Your-Board-Member” in the Newsletter (Mari)
Mari has prepared a monthly calendar assigning each board member to provide a profile for the newsletter. This slot will be titled “Meet Your Board Member”. The profiles will be due on the 8th of each month.
Encouraging More Sign-ups for the Festival (Mari)
We discussed ways to regain some of the artists who were accepted in 2019 and 2020 for one-time-only festival eligibility. Some have since juried in as fully eligible, but others have not reapplied. It was proposed that the Board admit all of those one-time-only artists as fully eligible. Chris, Ren, and April will look into the artists’ original applications and festival participation for assessment.
Communications (Susie)
The Communications Committee is working to make our website more engaging and more financially viable. The Treasurer reminded the Board that it had budgeted $300 per month as a stipend for communications work. The Board approved initiating this monthly stipend for Ren, retroactive to January 2023. Ren will send invoices to April. Ren informed the board that it should allocate money to pay writers to write articles for the newsletter. She also requested that members submit more information for the calendar.
Managing Access (Mari)
Cheryl and Mari will talk about how to transfer Zoom meeting management to one person on the board. Sally will step up for this role. Later discussions should address access to all other ACGA accounts with logins.
Exhibitions (Sally & Vicki)
The Exhibitions Committee recently visited the gallery Curated by the Sea in Santa Cruz, and met with the owner, Melissa Kreisa. We will have a juried exhibition there in 2024, probably in the spring. This will be a clay and glass show open to ACGA members and to clay and glass artists residing in Santa Cruz County. Opening it to local artists is a good way to spread the word about ACGA. Those who visited included Jan Schachter, Sally Jackson, Chris Johnson, and Randi Silverstein (who was also the original contact). Iver Hennig has also been in consultation and has visited the gallery on his own.
Vicki Gunter reported that Arts Benicia is a promising space for an exhibition in Benicia. She is pursuing this opportunity with a letter of inquiry and will know more after March 22. In addition, a new gallery in Benicia called NY2CA may also provide a chance for ACGA artists to show their work.
The meeting adjourned at 7:10 p.m.
Next Meeting: 5:30 p.m., April 10, 2023 via Zoom
All Members are Welcome
