2/16/26 ACGA Board Meeting

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

The meeting began at 5:15 PM and ended at 6:50 PM.

Welcome (Mari) 

• Mari welcomed everyone
• Our guest member, Kathy White, introduced herself. She’s a potter from Stockton and is quite involved in her local potter’s guild, the San Joaquin Potters Guild 

Administrative Review (Mari) 

2026 ACGA Board of Director’s Directory 

• Mari asks everyone to update their contact information in the 2026 ACGA Board of Directors Directory (Google Doc)

2026 ACGA Board Timeline

• Mari wants everyone to update the 2026 board timeline, which she plans to share in the next few days. It especially needs attention from committee leads. 

ACGA Email Accounts

• Mari shared the ACGA Email Communications List (Google Doc), showing that we have many email accounts maintained by different people
  • We confirmed that we are using all these accounts to either send emails or as logins for other accounts (e.g., MailChimp, Zoom, etc.) 
  • It was noted that we are missing the emails used for EntryThingy and JotForm 
• Mari mentioned that we will create a shared Google Drive to centralize file sharing 
  • Cheryl proposes that the secretary manage the Google Workspace and help keep track of our logins 
  • The idea of paying for Google Workspace was brought up 
    • Piper thinks it’s $7 per month and then $7 per user 
    • Julie wonders how many of these emails we need – she brought up that there’s concern about storage for her treasurer account and noted that a business account would be helpful 
    • A business workspace could replace Zoom if we use Google Meet instead
• Next Step: Britt, Piper, and Julie will meet separately and come up with a clear proposal for the next board meeting

Terminology

• Mari called out confusion of terminology – we use committee chair and committee lead somewhat interchangeably 
  • We all agree that we can call the committee heads “leads” so that it sounds more friendly than “chair”
  • April would like to stick to the title “Festival Liaison” because liaison feels like the right description for the position

Exhibitions Report

Jan introduced Vicki as the new exhibition lead. She will do it for this year, but we should be thinking about who may fill this role next. 

FIBER & FIRE in Sausalito (Deb)

• The Sausalito Center for the Arts opened the show last weekend, on February 14
  • 54 artists brought 64 works
  • Special thank you to Mari, Jan, April, and Heather Yates for being drop-off locations for all the work 
  • 400 people RSVPed before it was considered “sold out” 
  • Unfortunately two pieces broke – one during installation (but the artist brought a replacement piece and is requesting minimal compensation) and one during the opening (SCA is working on paying the artist for the piece) 
• Other notes on the show: 
  • Tons of foot traffic in Sausalito
  • There were no awards for this show because our collaborator, Fiber Dimensions, decided not to include awards for their artists
  • Vicki called out that the installation schedule was very complicated and should make sure this is better if we work there again 
• Mari thanked Deb and Jan for all their hard work on this show!
• Jan also noted that Kathy Paille, an ACGA member and Fiber Dimensions member, brought this exhibition opportunity to ACGA, and expressed thanks for her efforts. 
• Everyone is encouraged to go see this beautiful show
• Closing reception March 12, 2026 from 3-5pm and then there is a convenient artist pick up time from 5-7pm right after closing and on the next day

SILICA SiO2: Northern California Ceramics in Santa Cruz (Iver)

• The Santa Cruz Museum of Arts & History has been busy getting other shows together, so there are not a lot of updates, but Iver will be meeting with the museum team next Wednesday to do more coordination
• They will be using CaFE application to get entries 

FINELY CRAFTED in Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• The Sebastopol Center for the Arts will be doing the show, featuring clay, glass, wood, and metal, co-sponsored by ACGA 
• They’ve asked ACGA if we want to partner 
• Cost to ACGA will be $100 and Sebastopol Center for the Arts will take care of everything
• Dates: 
  • Call to entry will be in June 1-September 1
  • Show will take place in September (Note: Show will be up at the same time as Sebastopol Open Studio Tour) 
• They’re still looking for a jury
• They’ve asked us to give one clay and one glass award 
• Cheryl is meeting with them next week to plan further
• Robert Brent and Jamie Studley are organizing this  

Potential New Opportunity: Janet Wolf (ACGA member) who is on the board of NuMu Los Gatos is asking if the ACGA is interested in partnering for an exhibition in 2027. Vicki talked to Janet recently and Emil will follow up to get more details. 

Festival Report

General Festival Update (April)

• 134 registered for 2026 festival – not yet full
• We had a SNAFU with the application because so many people tried to apply in first 10 days that we ran into our monthly payment cap – April created a work around and Piper is now invoicing people individually
• Community organization participation 
  • Spiffy group will probably be there
  • BAGI can only do one day so we may not reserve space for them
• Last year 150 registered and 13 dropped (so 137 at the end) – wouldn’t be bad to have a waitlist this year
• April will reinstate paypal for festival registration

Festival Treasurer’s Report (Piper)

• ACGA revenue so far – $42,600 in registrations and $1,920 from table rentals
• Still have to pay City of Palo Alto $13,000 for facilities and then potentially an additional $2000 depending on how profitable the Festival is 
• All premium corner booths have been filled
• We don’t have any double booth registrations yet because we’ve been asking people if they can make do with 15ft booths, but will go back to these people and offer the full double booth if the festival is not oversubscribed
  • Cheryl is concerned that we are losing out on money by not offering this group double booths
    • Piper is planning on reaching out and re-offering double booth if we don’t have additional people 
    • Cheryl called out that we need to be careful how we communicate with artists about this so that we don’t make people feel underappreciated 
• April would like to send a reminder for eligible members reminding them to register 

Handwork 2026 Update (Barbara)

• Handwork 2026 is looking for more in-depth articles and would like one about an artist from Fiber and Fire show
• They want ACGA to keep tagging and using their hashtags, but they do not want individual artists doing this, just organizations like ACGA
• They are also looking for short videos showcasing artists (deeper content, not just promotion of events)
  • Jan brought up that a video of the throwdown may be good 
  • Video criteria: 
    • 1 minute or less
    • Should tell a story about object, process, technique, or tradition
    • Videos can be sent to Barbara so she can help with submission
• They will be looking for content all year 
• Mari suggests sending a call for all members to submit videos

Financial Report (Julie)

• Money in the bank: just over $202,000 
• Income for January: just under $50,000 ($42,000 was from festival)
• January expenses: $9,224 
• Julie has not completed 990 yet – waiting for 2025 forms to be available
• Cheryl asked about moving money to an account that gets interest – Julie will put something together for next meeting about moving to Capital One

Membership Report (Julie)

Membership Issues 

• We use plugins for membership on website, so we don’t have one central system – one coordinates payments, and one keeps track of members – they don’t talk well to each other
  • We’ve talked with Pam about different ideas and have previously tried using only one plug in and it didn’t work
• Julie feels we need to make a new website that incorporates membership system in the website (ex: Squarespace) – they have different membership systems that go through Squarespace 
• Julie proposes issuing an RFP for a new website build
  • Susie brought up the idea of letting Pam do this – Julie proposes inviting Pam submit to RFP 
• Next Steps: Emil and Julie will work on an RFP

Recruitment (Mari)

• Vicki and Iver will be stepping down from the board at the end of this year 
• We need to all start thinking about recruiting new board members and ideally find more volunteer members to team up and work on committees 
• We should invite members who are curious about the board to board meetings so they start to understand the process before we nominate them 

Date of next meeting is March 16th, 2026

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

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