The 6000 Circle Project
THE 6000 CIRCLE PROJECT
A Collaborative Exhibition Honoring the Divine Feminine
February 24 – April 6, 2024
Project Gallery at Arc Gallery
1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Curatorial Tour & Artist Discussion at Arc Project Gallery: Sunday, March 17, 1:30 – 3:30pm
In collaboration with The Calling (Artists Yasmin Lambie-Simpson, Chantelle Goldthwaite, and Sheila Metcalf-Tobin), everyone is invited to participate in the international art initiative, The 6000 Circle Project. The project focuses on the circle as a symbol of balance and unity, a never-ending container of feminine energy and light. The Calling envisions 6000 circles created by a multitude of artists from around the globe. Circles created by NCWCA members and the public will be exhibited in the Arc Project Gallery from February 24 through April 6, 2024. NCWCA is the first WCA chapter to kick off this global 2024 exhibition.
Artist Vicki Gunter at the opening reception with her piece: Mile 91- Buttercups @ Bampton- 165 to go!
Clay, Underglaze, Stains, Glaze 18 x 18 x 3.5 inches. My life-long friend, Carol invited me to join her on this amazing 256 mile adventure hiking coast to coast in Northern England. We did it in 2015!
THE BEAUTY OF PURPOSE: A Functional Ceramics Show
Sebastopol Center for the Arts
282 S. High Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472
MARCH 2 – 31, 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 2, 2-4pm
Juror: Cheryl Costantini
Handmade ceramic works, showing excellence in technique,
including innovative and traditional explorations of clay.
The blind jury resulted in several ACGA members including: Ian Bassett, Suki Diamond, Ruth Ehrenkrantz, Geraldine Ganun, Rebecca Love, Loren Lukens, Vince Montague, Kathy Pallie, Jan Schachter, Karen Winograde, Lynn Wood, Melissa Woodburn, Emil Yanos
ACGA Board Meeting Minutes – February 19, 2024
Present: Mari Emori, Chris Johnson, April Zilber, Julie Taber, Sally Jackson, Jan Schachter, Ren Lee, Lee Middleman, Barbara Prodaniuk, Trudy Chiddix, Emil Yanos, Iver Hennig, Susie Rubenstein, Cheryl Costantini, Scott Jennings, Tamara Danoyan Absent: Sonja Hinrichsen, Vicki Gunter
The meeting began at 5:15 pm
Welcome (Mari): Review of All-Member Meeting
Mari thanked everyone for attending the All-Member meeting on January 20 and asked for feedback. Suggestions for future all-member meetings include the following: 1) have an activity that engages attendees by asking them to do something creative or state their thoughts on topics at hand, 2) arrange break-out rooms on Zoom to discuss particular topics or goals, and 3) make the meeting more fun, participatory and entertaining, with committee reports sent out separately ahead of time.
Board of Directors Directory 2024 (Mari)
Mari has updated the Board of Directors Directory. Those Board members not assigned particular roles should let her know what area interests them. Mari would like to create the new position of Volunteer Coordinator to interact with members volunteering outside of the Clay and Glass Festival. Also, we need someone to take over as ACGA’s historian.
Festival Report (April)
ACGA’s contract with Messenger Events is signed. Our contract with the City of Palo Alto lacks only the Certificate of Insurance. April is talking to Kathy Maag about the scope of her publicity work. The application for festival booths went out in an email last week. The deadline to apply is March 15 and Board members will get priority for booth location if they apply by February 27. The map is being reconfigured to accommodate more booths. This year, images submitted by festival artists and other booth applicants will go to a shared GoogleDrive folder. Ren will have access to these images for social media posts and other promotions. Joe Battiato will once again coordinate demos at the festival; a sign-up is included in the festival application. Susie Rubenstein will revise our post-festival artists’ survey. Sandy Feder will recruit high school students who can help with set-up and take-down. The committee is considering buying 3-4 portable, folding kiosks to be staffed by volunteers who will welcome visitors at the festival and tell them what’s happening, when, and where. The Board did not decide whether to approve this unbudgeted expense. April would like to mentor a new Festival Liaison who will shadow her this year.
Combine Membership Renewal & Festival Application (Cheryl)
Cheryl proposes streamlining the process of membership renewal by combining it with festival registration, presumably in January each year. This could work well for festival artists but must be arranged in a way that doesn’t make non-festival artists and other members seem less important. Also, it would be important to accommodate people who want to apply for membership at other times of the year. Julie, Emil, April, and Cheryl will meet to discuss this idea and see if it’s a possibility for next year.
Membership (Emil)
Membership sign-ups spike predictably in January and February. Emil proposes getting rid of the late fee and suggests that we shift to join-date-anniversary for renewals. The Board needs more time to decide about this, especially given Cheryl’s proposal to combine renewal with festival application.
The website issues that plagued this year’s renewal process appear to be fixed. The Board discussed whether the auto-renew feature hinders or helps in terms of membership numbers. During this year’s problematic renewal process, Emil received unkind, occasionally abusive emails slamming him and the ACGA. He and Sally Jackson will work on a Code of Ethics that will be sent in response to such emails. We will also prepare a letter that expresses the Board’s disapproval of harassment and inappropriate language. In some cases, a phone conversation with the Board President is also called for.
The Board discussed festival artists who propose adding someone to their practice and registering as collaborative. One important question is whether the additional artist should be required to jury in. This topic will be addressed in more detail at our next meeting.
Emil emphasized that we need a plan for increasing sponsorship or donations. Donors should be aware that their donations are not tax-deductible.
Treasurer’s Report (Julie)
As of January 31, our total assets were $117,698. Julie is now an authorized user for our Bank of America account. Julie and Sally Jackson are now authorized users of our Fidelity account. Mari Emori will serve as a third party to look at the bank statements each month. Now that we have two treasurers, April (festival treasurer) and Julie (general treasurer) have written their job descriptions and will share the monthly stipend that formerly went entirely to April. 60% will go to Julie and 40% to April. Julie will send the two job descriptions, along with the stipend structure, to Mari for presentation and approval at the next board meeting.
Juror Recruitment (Chris)
The next application deadline is March 31. Chris is recruiting jurors for the next festival jurying. Board members will send him names of possible candidates, particularly clay jurors. Jurying entails two meetings about two weeks apart, discussions with other jurors, and written comments that are sent to the applicants along with results.
Board Timeline 2024 (Mari)
Mari has prepared a detailed timeline of Board duties, and asked what needs to be added. She emphasized the importance of adhering to the timeline, especially in terms of our election process and budget approval in December and our festival application distribution in January.
The meeting ended at 6:50 p.m.
Next meeting: 5:15 pm, Monday, March 18, 2024
Meet your Board Member: Iver Hennig
Clay and pottery making go all the way back to my very first memories. As the son of ceramic artists Laurie and Dan Hennig, clay has been an integral part of my entire life. Although I did not take ceramics seriously until my college years, I found out that the techniques and process had passively entered my brain as a child giving me a solid foundation to work with once I started taking the art form seriously.
The pottery that my parents were producing early on was predominantly functional work such as mugs and jugs which they sold at the Renaissance Fair here in California. This was 1971 and the craft fair movement was just getting started. They built a studio called Camp Climax Pottery in Boulder Creek California where I grew up. I have fond memories of those early years hanging out in the studio and going to the fairs on the weekends.
As a college student at Humboldt State University in the early 1990’s, I studied under Keith Schneider and Louis Marak. I was quickly influenced by the narrative nature and rich underglaze surfaces that Keith and Lou were experimenting with at that time. Looking back now, I see that those early years had a lasting effect on my style and the content of my current work.
After college was done in 1994, I immediately put together a ramshackle studio with my future wife, Jennifer, which we called Live Clay Pottery. We began collaborating on a body of work as well as developing as individual artists. I was also working as an apprentice for my parents on the side to pay the bills. By this point, Laurie and Dan’s work had evolved into a sculptural realm where animals became the dominant theme. They taught us the family techniques of sculpting onto thrown forms and furthered our knowledge in the ceramic process. Jennifer and I began selling our wares on the festival circuit and honing our voice in the clay. The four of us also began to do gallery shows and art festivals together as Hennig Studios.
In 1998 my mother Laurie was accepted into the ACGA as a festival eligible member. A couple years before, all four of us had participated in an international ceramics festival in southern Holland and were inspired to see how strong the clay community was in Europe. Upon visiting the Clay and Glass Festival in Palo Alto, I came to realize that the ACGA offered that same community we met in Europe of ceramic and glass artists as well as a place to build connections to the clay community on an international level.
In 2003 I was given the opportunity to teach ceramics at Santa Cruz High School. This position offered some stability and benefits for the family while still keeping the focus on clay. I continued thinking about joining the ACGA and how it could provide professional opportunities and connections to the clay community. I saw this as a benefit for that student that was interested in a career with the clay and glass arts.
I finally applied for the jury process in 2012 when I felt that the body of work I had created would pass the bar for acceptance into the association. I was accepted into the ACGA as a festival eligible member that year and have been participating in the Clay and Glass Festival almost every year since. The connections and friendships that I have created from the experience have been extremely valuable in my professional career as an artist and educator. I encourage anyone I meet with an interest in clay or glass to become a member of this valuable organization.
In January of 2023 I joined the board of directors after having served on a number of jury committees in the years prior. It has been an honor to participate on the board with so many talented and hard working clay and glass artists.The knowledge gained from them has been of huge value in my career. I currently help out on the Exhibition committee and want to thank Jan Schachter for helping me understand this complex process. It’s very encouraging to know the board of directors are so unified in the promotion of these ancient art forms.
I have had the privilege to experiment with so many aspects of the ceramics process. Whether it’s sculpting animals on thrown forms, creating large conceptual pieces or just making some functional pottery for the salt kiln we have at the high school, each experience has broadened my understanding of this medium. It seems like every door I open leads me to another room with dozens of additional doors. Although my entire life has been surrounded by the ceramic arts, I still feel like a babe in the woods at times. There is just so much to learn that it would probably take many lifetimes to master all aspects.
Currently, I am teaching full time and creating as much ceramic work as possible. Outside the Live Clay collaborative pieces and functional pottery, I am also working on a series of sculptures that incorporate mechanical and animal hybrid elements. I have always had a deep fascination with nature and all the strange creatures that have existed on earth throughout history. Prehistoric animals hold a special place in my imagination. But on the flip side of the coin, I am a product of the science fiction generation that blossomed over the last hundred plus years. From steampunk to the concept of “the used future”, these influences have fascinated me since childhood. Throw into that mix my love of the Funk art movement with its humor and political satire and you get an idea of what motivates me creatively. I believe artists are like valves from which ideas flow. We process what we experience and regurgitate it. Current events, social issues, the environment, history, art, love, sex, tenderness, color, texture, form, mood and everything we know and witness in life is chewed up and spit out in the form of art. At times I have no clue where the meaning lies. Other times the ideas have deep personal value.
ACGA Newsletter February 2024
Meet Your Board Member
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