Board Meeting 

• Present: Mari Emori, April Zilber, Cheryl Costantini, Lee Middleman, Julie Taber, Susie Rubenstein, Sean Alcala, Ren Lee, Emil Yanos, Tamara Danoyan, Barbara Prodaniuk, Chris Johnson, Iver Hennig, Vicki Gunter, Britt Jensen, Pierre Bounaud, Piper Christine, Jan Schachter
• Absent: Haley Tessler

The meeting began at 9:30 AM.

Officer Elections led by April Zilber:

• Britt Jensen for Secretary: unanimous
• Julie Taber for Treasurer: unanimous
• Mari Emori for President: unanimous
• Vice President: no nominations, but Chris Johnson & Iver Henning agreed to informally take on Vice Presidential duties while Mari is away this year

The meeting ended at 9:40 AM.

All-Member Meeting

The meeting began at 10:00 AM.

Welcome by Mari Emori

Mari provided an overview of the agenda.

Meet the New Board Members by Britt Jensen

Officers 2026:

• President: Mari Emori was elected to continue to serve in 2026
• Vice President: no nominations, but Chris Johnson and Iver Hennig will informally take on vice presidential duties to support Mari if needed
• Treasurer: Julie Taber was elected to continue to serve in 2026
• Secretary: Britt Jensen was elected to serve in 2026

Newly elected Board Members 2026-27: 

• Britt Jensen provided a brief bio
• Pierre Bounaud provided a brief bio
• Haley Tessler – not present.  Britt read a brief written bio provided by Haley

Returning board members 2026-27: Cheryl Costantini, Tamara Danoyan, Chris Johnson, Ren Lee, Lee Middleman, Susie Rubenstein, Jan Schachter, Julie Taber, April Zilber

Second year of two-year term board members: Sean Alcala, Mari Emori, Vicki Gunter, Iver Hennig, Piper Christine, Barbara Glynn Prodaniuk, Emil Yanos

Chris Johnson was introduced as the first ACGA Glass Ambassador, aiming to increase glass artist involvement and raise awareness of the ACGA within the glass community. 

Treasurer’s Report by Julie Taber

As of 12/31/25:

• Assets: $162,847
  • Bank accounts: $157,110
  • Other current assets: $5,737
• Income: $157,177
  • Regular revenues: $34,845
  • Festival revenues: $122,332
• Expenditures: $125,400
  • Regular expenses: $39,188
  • Festival expenses: $86,212  
• Net Income: $31,777
• [Correction on what was stated in the meeting : festival expenditures should be $86,209, which lowers Expenditures to $125,397 and raises Net Income to $31,780.]

The Board voted in the November 2025 meeting to donate $1,000 to BAGI.

Membership Update by Emil Yanos

• 374 Active members
  • 240 are Festival-eligible
  • 62 new members within the last year
• Membership distribution:
  • 360 General
  • 14 Collaborative
  • 6 Honorary
  • 6 Student
  • 2 Corporate

• Emil clarified that our corporate sponsors are people.  Their sponsorships are $250-$1000 [Correction on what was stated in the meeting: Our corporate sponsors are businesses and organizations. Corporate Sponsorship is one of ACGA’s membership categories (“Sponsor Membership”), with sponsorship levels of $150/year (Gold Level) and $250/year (Platinum Level). Corporate sponsors are different from donors. Donors may be businesses/organizations or individuals.]

• Emil mentioned ongoing challenges with the renewal process, which the organization is looking to address by changing the system.
• Several members thanked Emil for his service managing membership renewals.

Studio Spotlight

• Bruce Pizzichillo
• Lindsay Langsdale
• Taka Unno

• Bruce and Taka were present to answer questions from members. Bruce, an Oakland-based glass artist, expressed willingness to help new glass artists and discussed the challenges of finding glass art programs in the Bay Area. Taka, a Berkeley-based ceramic artist, shared his journey into pottery during the pandemic and his experience at the ACGA Clay and Glass Festival.

Handwork 2026 Introduction by Barbara Glynn Prodaniuk

• Barbara presented a short video outlining ACGA’s participation in Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, a nationwide Semiquincentennial initiative led by Craft in America, in partnership with the American Craft Council, that highlights the importance of handmade. Handwork 2026 will promote 250 events, including ACGA’s Clay & Glass Festival and exhibitions. 
• Members can share videos with Barbara for inclusion on the Handwork 2026 website. It was suggested that the three Studio Spotlight videos be added to ACGA’s page on the Handwork 2026 website. Mari will ask the featured artists for permission.

Exhibitions Update by Jan Schachter

Jan provided an overview of ACGA exhibitions, highlighting recent and upcoming shows, and explained how exhibition coordination works—including how the coordinator position was established and how exhibitions are organized.

• Art of Fire (past): Vicki Gunter provided detailed information about the Arts of Fire exhibit in Benicia in 2025, including participants, financials, award winners, and images of pieces and participating artists.
• Fiber and Fire (upcoming): Deb Sullivan described the upcoming Fiber and Fire exhibition at the Sausalito Center for the Arts. The exhibition is a collaboration with Fiber Dimensions. It runs 2/14/26 – 3/12/26, with an opening reception on Sat 2/14 from 5:00PM – 7:30PM. And a closing reception 3/12 from 3:30PM-5:00PM. 
• Silica/SiO2 (upcoming): Iver Hennig presented information about the upcoming Silica/SiO2: Northern California Ceramics exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH). The show is open to all ceramic artists in CA. Call for entries will be open 3/15/26 – 5/1/26, and the exhibition will run 9/4/2026 – 1/3/27. Works in the gallery will not be for sale, but there will be an opportunity to sell smaller works in the museum’s gift shop. Also, there’s a tentative plan to have a small show & sale in the gift shop around Halloween, starting in mid-October, called “Frank O’Stein,” to create more opportunities for artists to sell their work.
  • Lee suggested raising the price point from $100 to $150-$200. [Clarification (added during minutes approval): If pricing is implemented, Iver will discuss price points with the museum.]
  • Mari suggested setting up an online gallery to promote exhibiting artists and their work, and to enable interested collectors to contact artists directly for potential sales—similar to a previous successful model, the de Young Open in San Francisco in 2023. Iver agreed to propose this idea to MAH.

2025 Festival Financial Report by Piper Christine

• Revenue: $122,332.43
• Expenses: $86,208.83
• Profit: $36,123.60
• Piper provided tables and graphs that showed more detailed information on 2025 Festival sales data and artists’ sales.
• Several Festival Committee members have discussed interviewing 2025’s top sellers and presenting their business insights in the member or monthly all-subscriber newsletter. 

2026 Festival Updates by April Zilber

• Text updates: Important festival updates will now be sent via text in addition to email. Artists need to opt in to receive text alerts. 
• Festival job waiver: Registrants now have the option to pay $75 to be waived from doing a Festival job. Any jobs that are not done by artists will be covered by Messenger Events with the funds collected from the job waiver fees
• Responding to an inquiry about the all-member exhibit from Bruce Pizzichillo: The all-member exhibit became too costly with pedestal transportation and required a lot of staffing, but it is not completely off the table! Vicki Gunter proposed having a longer-term exhibit at PAAC that would overlap with the Festival.
• Pottery throwdown coordinator needed: Mari announced that she needs a new Pottery Throwdown coordinator for the Festival and asked interested members to contact her by email, ideally someone who is not participating in the Festival.

Festival Jury Update by Tamara Danoyan

• Spring 2025 jury: 

• • • 45 applicants: 11 glass and 34 clay
    • 25 acceptances: 7 glass and 18 clay

• Fall 2025 jury:

• • 31 applicants: 1 glass and 30 clay
  • 7 acceptances: all clay
• Jurying for festival eligibility will now occur once per year in the fall. 
• Tamara asked interested Festival-eligible members to volunteer as mentors to support artists who didn’t get juried in and to contact her by email. [Clarification (added during minutes approval): Mentors are intended to support both (1) artists planning to apply to the Festival Jury and (2) artists who are not accepted.”]

Communications Update by Ren Lee

• Ren is hoping to step down as social media promoter.  This could potentially be a paid position. Ren asked interested members to contact her via Instagram if they would like to take on ACGA’s social media promotion.
• Ren encouraged members to read the Newsletter, which contains a lot of important information.

Scholarship Update by Julie Taber

• James Meyer, owner of East Bay Batch and Color in Richmond, has pledged to donate $1,000 annually for the foreseeable future. We have received $1,000 from James in 2024 and in 2025 so far.
• ACGA will also receive several thousand dollars from a class-action lawsuit.
• The ACGA Board would like to create a scholarship program to provide funds for artists, prioritizing young, emerging, low-income, and/or POC clay and glass artists. A committee is needed to establish eligibility qualifications and to award funds to scholarship applicants. Please reach out to Julie if you are interested in being on the scholarship committee.

Q&A 

• Britt mentioned the perception of the ACGA as being focused on the festival and the need to continue prompting exhibitions, workshops, and community partnerships.

The meeting ended at 11:55 AM.

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

Present: Mari Emori, Chris Johnson, Julie Taber, Jan Schachter, Iver Hennig, Susie Rubenstein, Sean Free Alcala, Emil Yanos, Barbara Prodaniuk, Tamara Danoyan, Piper Christine, April Zilber, Vicki Gunter, Lee Middleman, Haley Tessler, Cheryl Costantini    Absent: Ren Lee, Britt Jensen, Pierre Bounaud    Guest: Sally Jackson (recorder)

The meeting began at 5:15 p.m.

Welcome (Mari)

Announcements (Mari)

Mari welcomed new Board members Haley Tessler, Pierre Bounaud, and Britt Jensen. She noted that Tamara will become the Jury Coordinator this year, assisted by Britt Jensen.

Financial Report (Julie)

ACGA ended 2025 with $163,000 in the bank. Some of that is in PayPal, which receives fees from membership, calls-for-entry, and festival registration. ACGA has begun 2026 in good shape financially. Income for 2025 totaled $157,000, expenses totaled $125,000, and net income totaled $32,000.  Since Clay & Glass Festival registration opened last week, 95 artists have applied.

Archives Relocation Plan (April)

When we moved our ACGA storage from Berkeley to Santa Clara in 2023, we handed off our archives to a collector in Berkeley with the idea that he would add these papers to his ceramic art collection, for eventual donation to a museum or other institution. Now, over two and a half years later, the ultimate destination of his collection is still undecided, and he needs the space back. The Board feels that the archives should stay in California. April will retrieve the archives and try to fit them into our Santa Clara storage unit, with Bruno Kark’s help.

Proposals for Approval

Privacy Policy Update (Julie): Julie presented an updated Privacy Policy for ACGA’s website prepared by a lawyer. The Board suggested minor edits which Julie will incorporate into the final wording.  The Board voted unanimously to approve this new policy (16 yes)

“About Us” Page (Mari): Mari presented two options for the wording of ACGA’s “About Us” section on the website, prepared by the Communications Team and Mari. The Board voted unanimously in favor of Option 2 (16 yes).

Honoraria 2025 (Mari): Mari proposed honoraria for work done in 2025: an additional $1000 to April for her work as Festival Liaison, $500 to Ren for her work as Festival Media Liaison, and $500 to Ren for her work as Festival Social Media Promoter. The Board approved these retroactive honoraria (15 yes, 1` abstention). Mari also proposed that Vicki receive an honorarium of 50% of the net profit from the “Arts of Fire” exhibition, which Vicki coordinated. The Board amended the honorarium to $500 and voted to approve the amended proposal (14 yes, 1 abstention), but agreed that in the future such honoraria must be based on clearly defined criteria that apply to all the varied outcomes of exhibitions.

Proposed Stipends for the 2026 Budget (Mari): Mari proposed that the 2026 Clay & Glass Festival Liaison will receive $2000.  The Festival Liaison-in-training will receive $480, the Festival Social Media Promoter will receive $500, and the Festival Media Liaison will receive $500 only if these roles are filled by non-ACGA members, with a preference to find an ACGA member volunteer first. Ren will write job descriptions of the latter two positions, and her replacements will be recruited. The Board voted to approve these stipends (15 yes; April left the meeting before the vote).

Glass Ambassador

The Board approved Chris Johnson as ACGA’s first Glass Ambassador (15 yes).

All-Member Meeting: January 24, 2026

Mari shared the agenda for the All-Member Meeting to be held later this week.  This will be a hybrid meeting, in-person at the Palo Alto Art Center and also on Zoom.

Acting Vice-President Vacancy

Mari noted that she will be away for two months this year and will need an acting vice president to run meetings in her absence.

The meeting ended at 6:50 p.m.

Next Meeting: Monday, February 16, 2026 at 5:15 p.m. via Zoom

Present: Mari Emori, Sally Jackson (recorder), Susie Rubenstein, Julie Taber, Piper Christine, April Zilber, Cheryl Costantini, Tamara Danoyan, Emil Yanos, Sean Free Alcala, Barbara Prodaniuk, Iver Hennig, Jan Schachter, Vicki Gunter, Chris Johnson

Absent: Lee Middleman, Ren Lee, Scott Jennings    Guests: Pierre Bounaud, Deb Sullivan

The meeting began at 5:15 p.m.

Welcome (Mari)

Financial Report (Julie)

As of November 30, ACGA has $156,000 in the bank.  Net income in November was $3000. ACGA will receive more income from membership renewals during the month of December.

Julie presented a draft of the budget for 2026. Some administrative expenses will increase and others need adjustment.  The Board discussed these adjustments, which will be reflected in the next draft.  The Board voted unanimously (15 yes) to accept this Budget Proposal, with allowances for the adjustments we discussed.

 

Festival Budget Update (Piper)

Piper presented a 2026 budget for the Clay & Glass Festival, proposing a net revenue of about $23,000.

Exhibitions: Sausalito Show (Deb Sullivan and Jan Schachter)

Accepted artists for the show “Fiber and Fire” at the Sausalito Center for the Arts have now been notified. Photos and information have been sent to the Center, and ACGA has paid the American Craft Council for the juror’s services. Deb and Jan are still working out the placement of some artists’ work in the Center’s gift shop, and they are still looking for a volunteer in the South Bay/Peninsula who could deliver work from that region to the venue in February.

Exhibitions: Santa Cruz Show (Iver)

Iver and his team will meet with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History later this week to finalize plans for a show there next year. It’s time to decide where to publicize the call for entries, and which entry platform to use.  The Board discussed the length of the submission window. The show will take place August 2026-January 2027.

Membership Report & ACC Partnership (Emil)

We have over 400 members at this time, about 260 of whom are festival-eligible.  Emil will know exactly how many festival-eligible members we have after the renewal period ends on December 31.

Emil has spoken to people at the American Craft Council about reciprocal membership possibilities.  ACC has proposed that we offer each other’s members a 15% discount to join our respective organizations. This discount would apply to one year of membership and would be purchased with a discount code on ACC’s and ACGA’s websites. The Board voted unanimously (15 yes) to pursue this reciprocal membership arrangement with ACC.  Emil will look into details, such as how we add this discount opportunity to our membership payment page, and how long this arrangement might last.  The ACC would like to start as soon as possible; Emil will report back to the Board in January.

ACC Handwork 2026 (Barbara)

Barbara has been in contact with Craft in America’s Handwork initiative, and would like to submit ACGA events to their 2026 calendar.  She needs photos, show descriptions, blurbs, etc. for each event that we want to post on the Handwork website.  There is competition for space, so the sooner we can get our information submitted, the better.

Festival Update (April)

April outlined several new projects proposed for the 2026 Clay and Glass Festival.

1) The Artists’ Party will take place in the shaded inner courtyard of the Art Center.

2) Messenger Events will get a Google phone number so that artists can receive notifications via text. The first step is to get festival-eligible artists to opt in to receiving these texts.

3) A limited number of artists may be allowed to pay a fee to opt out of working for two hours at the festival. This will be an experiment for 2026.

4) The facility rental fee has increased by $1000 to cover additional dumpster pick-up and other services.

5) Messenger Events will mount “You are Here” signs throughout the show with maps.

6) Reconciliation will no longer pursue correcting errors of less than $10.

7) April is still looking into renting compact water bottle refilling stations

Board of Directors Election 2025 & Guest Candidates Introduction (Mari)

The ballot for the ACGA Board of Directors election for the 2026-2027 term has gone out to our members. Three candidates are running for election: Pierre Bounaud, Haley Tessler, and Britt Jensen. Mari welcomed Pierre, a ceramic artist from San Diego.  He hopes to increase ACGA’s presence in Southern California. Ballots will be counted at the end of December.

Approval of a New Protocol for Approving Meeting Minutes (Mari)

Mari’s proposed changes to our protocol for approving Board Meeting Minutes each month was approved unanimously (15 yes). From now on, we will discontinue formal votes to approve the minutes. The Board will reserve formal votes for critical decisions, and we will approve the minutes by unanimous consent. This process will proceed as follows:

The Secretary will send out a draft of the minutes for comment. After receiving comments, the Secretary will update the minutes and redistribute them as “Revised Minutes—For Approval”. The Secretary will then request any additional corrections by 10 p.m. PT on the 6^th of the following month. If no additional corrections are received by the 6^th, the revised minutes will be considered “Approved by Unanimous Consent” and submitted for the next ACGA Newsletter.  Note that comments should always be submitted as “Reply All”, and minor spelling or grammar corrections can be handled editorially.

Upcoming All-Member Meeting: Agenda, Presentations, and Hospitality (Mari)

The ACGA All-Member Meeting will take place on January 24. It will be a hybrid meeting, with a gathering at the Palo Alto Art Center and an option to attend online. There will be a potluck lunch at the Art Center afterwards.  Sally, Jan, Tamara, and Cheryl will work on hospitality (coffee, etc.).  The meeting will be organized much like last year’s, including pre-recorded 3-minute studio tours by three of our members.

January Board Meeting Date (before All-Member Meeting)

Mari will send out a poll to determine the best date for the Board to meet the week before the All-Member Meeting.

                       

The meeting ended at 6:52 p.m.

 

Present: Mari Emori, April Zilber, Sally Jackson (recorder), Julie Taber, Tamara Danoyan, Jan Schachter, Chris Johnson, Ren Lee, Barbara Prodaniuk, Iver Hennig, Piper Christine, Scott Jennings, Sean Free Alcala, Susie Rubenstein, Vicki Gunter, Cheryl Costantini, Emil Yanos    Absent: Lee Middleman

Guests:  Britt Jensen, Deb Sullivan

The meeting began at 5:15 p.m.

 

Welcome & Announcements (Mari)

Mari noted the recent passing of Barbara Brown, a ceramic artist, teacher, collector, ACGA member, and longtime ACGA International Ambassador well-known in the Bay Area and beyond.  We extend our sympathy to Barbara’s family and friends.

Mari welcomed our member guests, Deb Sullivan and Britt Jensen.

 

Board of Directors Nominations Update (Mari)

Mari confirmed that there are four members running for the Board of Directors on the upcoming ballot: Britt Jensen, Haley Tessler, Pierre Bounaud, and Barbara Savage. Each has provided a short introductory statement and a photo.

Fiber and Fire Exhibit Update (Deb/Jan)

The call for entries for “Fiber and Fire” at the Sausalito Center for the Arts received 65 entries and a total of 175 pieces. Entry fee income was $2275, which will easily cover expenses. A secondary stream of income for the artists and the Center (not ACGA) will come from the shop, where accepted artists can offer 1-2 small pieces of their work for sale.  Juror Katie Johnson of the American Craft Council (ACC) will announce accepted work on November 25.

ACGA will pay $300 to ACC for Katie Johnson’s jurying. This fee will help sponsor a future ACC event, “Object Stories San Francisco”, a live story-telling event that will bring together artists, writers, and members of the art community to showcase handmade objects. ACC has asked that ACGA help establish connections that will facilitate this event and others like it.  Jan emphasized that, given this great opportunity, we should appoint one person to coordinate with ACC. We need details about when the event would happen, how much help would be needed, and what other cross-promotional opportunities will be available. Cheryl volunteered to serve as liaison with ACC.

April reminded the Board that we are also participating in Handwork 2026 and should make sure our events are included in that online calendar listing.

Vicki volunteered to write up information about what it takes to put on an exhibition.

Festival Jury Report (Scott)

As of November 1, seven new artists have been accepted as festival eligible. Those accepted are all clay artists. Scott has been corresponding with rejected artists to give them constructive feedback. He noted that some are frustrated, and some don’t realize that this jury is for lifetime status. He proposed editing the description of our jurying process and emphasizing the visual importance of photos to show work more clearly to the jurors.

2026 Festival Update (April)

April asked the Board to consider whether Board members should be offered a waiver to opt out of taking a two-hour job at the festival, and whether participating artists should have the option to pay extra (or receive a discount) to staff their two-hour job assignment with a paid worker. A two-hour slot would cost $66. Messenger Events would need to know well in advance if extra hires are needed.  Some important jobs during the Festival weekend would still need to be staffed by artists, so the offer has to be framed in such a way that we still have enough artist participants. The Board voted unanimously that active Board members participating in the festival can opt out of volunteering without paying extra (17 yes).

ACGA Archive Decision (April)

The boxes that contain ACGA’s archives are currently in Forrest Merrill’s storage unit in Emeryville.  His staff has asked whether ACGA wants to retrieve the boxes or cede ownership to Forrest’s estate in perpetuity.  The Board asked April to find out whether the archive will ultimately stay in California, whether ACGA could continue to contribute to the archive, whether there would be fees involved, and whether the archive might be digitized. The Board also discussed retrieving the archives; however, the quantity of boxes would tax our current storage space.

James Meyer Scholarship Update (Scott)

The Board discussed a new approach for the Meyer Fund distribution that involves partnering with reputable clay and glass nonprofits in California and directing funds through their established scholarship programs for young and emerging artists. This partner model would broaden our reach, increase ACGA’s visibility, and, as a trial, still allow us to move forward with the first planned distribution in January 2026 despite our limited administrative capacity. A counter-proposal emphasized keeping the money within ACGA and using it to help our own members.   Scott also proposed that ACGA match the funds each year to create a more robust fund. Further discussion is needed before any decisions can be made.  Mari will work on forming a Meyer Fund committee early in 2026.

Donation Proposal (Sean)

Sean reported that the Bay Area Glass Institute (BAGI) will soon hold a fundraiser the help pay for a mobile glassblowing trailer, and he proposed that ACGA make a donation in support. The trailer will be available for demos in 2026 or 2027 at the Clay & Glass Festival. The Board voted to donate $1000 to BAGI for this initiative (16 yes, 1 no).

 

Financial Report and 2026 Budget Approval (Julie)

As of October 31, our bank balance is $150,187 and our PayPal balance is $6981. During the month of October, expenses exceeded income by $730. For the year-to-date, our net operating income is $28,843.

Board Timeline 2026 (Mari)

Mari asked that Board members on committees send their 2026 timelines to her by December 10.  She will prepare a master calendar.

The meeting adjourned at 7:00 p.m.

Next Meeting: Monday, December 15, 2025, at 5:15 p.m. via Zoom