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

The meeting began at 5:15 PM and ended at 6:45 PM.

Welcome (Julie) 

• Julie welcomed everyone

Financial Report (Julie)

• Total Assets ~$164k
• Spent ~$23k more last month than we brought in, but that covers is a lot of up-front festival expenses including paying Palo Alto for the festival space 
• Revenue ~$1.8k so far this year
• Cheryl asked about income from booth fees – did we lose any money by not having the larger premium booths? – Piper clarified that spaces that would have become 10×20 were converted to 10×10, so all the spaces should be paid for

Festival Report 

General updates (April)

• This year we currently have 132 artists due to cancelations, last year we had 134 
  • Note: some of the cancellations were not on the lawn, so it doesn’t help us expand the spaces to the larger booth size
• 3 nonprofit booths (Marks Project, CERF, and Spiffy Pottery Studio) and 2 commercial booths 
  • Note from Vicki on Marks Project: She submitted to marks project a few months ago and it was quite difficult. Thanks to her suggestion, they did update their form, but are still updating their website, so she has not seen her submission posted. 
• Participating festival artist grid is up on the website – April encourages everyone to check their info to make sure it’s right
• Ren is posting a lot about the festival 
• Barbara submitted videos from April & Sean as well as a compilation video to Handwork, but they haven’t been posted by Handwork yet because they’re still showing June events
  • Barbara will share the videos with Ren for her to share on our social media
• April wants to make sure we have enough volunteers (given the pay to opt-out option) and needs to get a spreadsheet from Annie to verify

Festival treasurer’s report (Piper)

• Everyone who needs to be paid has been paid
• Festival Swag – Piper was going to order it in 2 different orders (artist vs. throwdown) and asked Annie if she’d be willing to get all stuff shipped to Messenger Events, but hasn’t heard back
  • Pens in particular need to be shipped to Annie so they can be put in packets during assembly
  • Cheryl can order pens to Annie and other things to her house and bring them down 
  • New artists will get water bottles
• Vicki asked we are still getting things from Clay People for throwdown- April confirmed we are

Festival Jury (Tamara/Britt)

• • Jury process page has been updated on website
  • We’ve scheduled a time (August 18) to have a Zoom info session for people interested in applying to the jury
    • We will announce after festival so it doesn’t get confusing
    • Britt is working on presentation for the call
  • The jury is in place
  • Tamara expressed concern about JotForm and April thinks unfortunately we’ll be in the same boat getting individual permissions like we did last year

• Separate conversation about festival info session (NOTE jury info session)

• • Unfortunately the recording from last year’s info session was not found in the Zoom archives, but April will send the handout that was created
  • We have festival clay and glass mentor volunteers – Cheryl thinks people should be given a mentor when they get juried in, not right during festival 

Festival Feedback (Tamara)

• One person agreed to be juror, but said she will not be doing festival because it wasn’t good for her – Tamara doesn’t know the reason
• Tamara also received feedback from another glass artist who did the festival for the first time last year and will not be returning because dues, fees, and festival job felt high, they didn’t like their location, and they did not feel welcomed at the festival 
• To improve the experience of new artist and make sure they feel welcomed, Britt brought up the idea of formalizing a crew of board members who are each assigned to stop by a new festival artist’s booth
  • Cheryl, April, and Mari have done this informally, but Cheryl agrees it would be nice to formalize 

Exhibitions Report

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

• Starting to coordinate drop offs
  • If anyone wants to bring pieces to festival on Saturday, Iver is happy to bring them to Santa Cruz
  • Iver will also send out an email to help with generally carpooling work

FINELY CRAFTED in Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• It’s been a little quiet because there are other shows between now and the Finely Crafted show
• The art center does not want more money for awards because they are trying to make it equitable between the shows they’re putting on, so we’ll go back to original award prices
• ACGA will do more promotion closer to the date
• Vicki said she saw the communications that were sent out about the show and they seemed to imply that they were looking for all functional work – this wasn’t Cheryl’s impression, but the language they use is confusing: pieces should have “utility in their heritage”
  • Cheryl will clarify what this means 

Potential SoCal Exhibition Venues (Pierre)

• Pierre has been looking for venues that could be good partners for ACGA in Southern California 
• Two venues showed interest
  • Fallbrook Art Center – nonprofit art venue and art school 
    • They have a glass show in September with a currently open call for entry – would be great to have some ACGA artists apply and start forming connections with the venue
    • Pierre spoke to the director about 2 shows we might want to be collaborators in that are already on their books 
      • “Carved and Thrown” – March 13 – April 24, 2027 
        • Wood and ceramics
        • Call for entry in December
      • “Home and Garden Show” – May 1 – June 12, 2027 
        • More open show
        • Call for entry in February 2027
      • We could help with curation, jury, or awards
    • We may also want to consider getting involved in their annual glass show next year 
  • Oceanside Museum of Art – museum, but also venue where they organize exhibitions that artists submit proposals for
    • They sent Pierre guidelines for proposals and he noted that the theme or artists themselves need to be around Southern California 
• Pierre thinks we should focus on Fallbrook for now since there are some imminent shows we could get involved in and they are less specific to Southern California

Date of next meeting is August 17, 2026 (no meeting in July)

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

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

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

Welcome (Mari) 

• Mari welcomed everyone
• Show announcements: 
  • Jan and Lee both have Open Studios May 2 – 3
  • Barbara has a solo show at the Pence March 13 – April 26
  • Many ACGA members have pieces at a show in Davis April 3 – 27 : “Menagerie” at The Artery

Financial Report (Julie)

• $170k in the bank, but a lot of this will be used for Festival 
• $42k in fidelity investments
• -$8k income in March because most money came in during Festival registration (December- February)
• Total operating revenue for this year $33k and we budgeted $8k – likely due to the fact that Festival income came in earlier this year
• Julie finished tax returns 
  • Any board member who received a 1099 should be listed in the tax return 
• Julie looked into moving money over to a CapitalOne investment account, but decided it was not worth it – they have a 3 month promotional rate (3.8%) and then it goes way down (~2%)
• Julie thinks maybe we should do a CD ladder to give us a little extra income and we can do this at Bank of America so it doesn’t require the hassle of moving banks
  • We would qualify for the nonprofit account, but it’s really not very different from a regular account 

Presentation of RFP for new website (Julie)

• On our current website the membership system and payment systems do not communicate well; Pam has looked into a lot of different options for us with WordPress, but there isn’t really any good option
• Julie has drafted an RFP that we can put out in our newsletter and on our website to have someone design a new website for us with membership and payment systems that are well integrated; she also noted that it would be great to have Festival and jury registration all in one place
  • Mari, Emil, Ren, April, Piper, and James have all reviewed the RFP
• The board voted and unanimously agrees we should redo the website and circulate the RFP 
• Discussion on member profiles: 
  • Julie wonders if we need to have a member profile login or if we can just have something populate with their website, social media, etc. when they first sign up to be a member
  • There was general agreement on this strategy, but April noted it would be important to clarify to members that not ALL contact info would be shown to public 
  • There was also discussion of how helpful it would be to be able to find members based on region 
• Vicki brought up that the Clay Studio in Philadelphia seems to have everything in one place all connected and that it may be worth contacting them to learn how they did that

Google drive update (Britt)

• Britt presented the new structure for the board’s shared Google Workspace, but needs to do some more work to make sure files that get transferred into these folders are “owned” by the board’s workspace for posterity and to free up Google Drive space on everyone’s personal drive. 
• An email will be sent out next week with more details on accessing the drive and instructions on how to move files over

Festival Report 

General updates (April)

• 136 artists in show and 3 on waitlists
• 10-11 community groups 
• Approved MegaJewell’s first press release 
• April received the contract from Palo Alto Art Center and will review shortly 
• Mari clarified that board members are exempt from doing festival jobs
  • April said she emailed Laura about making sure board members are not included on festival jobs list, but has not heard back
  • Anyone who did sign up can cancel using the same link  
• Mari encouraged everyone to be active on the board 
  • Pierre said he would like to organize an exhibition next year in Southern California 
  • Hayley is interested in exhibitions as well 

Festival treasurer’s report (Piper)

• Finances are going well, nothing new to report 
• Cheryl asked if we’re leaving money on the table with the 10×20 booths, but April clarified that there isn’t enough space right now, so we’ll consider offering them later if people drop out 
• Piper said more people registered for premium spaces who didn’t receive them and Piper will refund or offer waitlist for premium space 

Throwdown update (Mari)

• We had 20 people on waitlist from last year
• We have a new throwdown coordinator – Jennifer Henning
• Jennifer sent out an invitation to first 12 people on waitlist from last year and will continue working down the list if some of those people can’t do it
• We already have a great trophy that Iver made last year as backup 
• Clay People is donating all clay for clay-related activities as well as 2nd- and 3rd-place prizes for throwdown  
• Iver brought up that it would be really nice to have a wireless headset so it’s easier for MC to walk around and measure while still announcing – Chris said he has one we can use 

Gift for Forrest Merrill (April)

• Mari proposed we use Ren’s idea from last meeting to thank Forrest Merrill
  • An ACGA clay award at ACGA-hosted exhibitions in his honor of Forrest Merrill 
  • We could also add a glass award in honor of James Meyer who donates $1000 to ACGA ACGA-hosted exhibition 
• Jan asked how we would select a juror for the award – April clarified it would be the same person who chooses 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at each exhibition where the award is given 
• April wants to make sure it’s clear that the award isn’t being given by him, but in honor of him – will need to come up with a good name 
• Potential names
  • ACGA’s Forrest Merrill Award for Clay
  • ACGA’s James Meyer Award for Glass 
  • Note: Ren feels strongly that we not use the apostrophes 
• Alternative ideas: 
  • Cheryl points out that we should check with Forrest about using his name and wonders if a gift certificate to a nice meal would be better 
  • Lee proposes we invite him to the party on Saturday at the festival and someone speaks about his contribution 
  • Mari proposed a gift certificate to purchase work at the festival 
  • Susie proposes planting a tree somewhere in his honor 
• Conclusion: Cheryl will reach out to Mark Goudy who knows Forrest well and will discuss what would be appropriate to honor him

Festival Jury (Tamara/Britt)

• Tamara and Britt have set up monthly meetings to begin planning the jury process for this fall and Scott Jennings will be joining the next meeting so they can pick his brain
• Tamara and Britt met with Randie about doing a Zoom mentoring session before the application is due, but Randie can’t take this on so they will organize a jury mentoring session themselves for sometime in August and may invite others to join and offer their guidance

Exhibitions Report

NuMu in Los Gatos (Vicki)

• No updates, but Emil and Vicki are working on it

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

• 10 more days to apply to the show
• Iver will be helping Stan Welsh with the jury process in May 
• Mari brought up that the description was confusing – accepting up to 3 work samples, but what does that mean
  • Can submit up to 3 pieces and 1-3 images per piece 
• Susie is concerned about the fact that it says only Northern California artists even though we’ve discussed the geographic boundaries and that is not the case. She’s also concerned about shipping situation for those not in the Bay Area
  • Iver is willing to arrange a drop-off at ACGA festival for artists who are not in the Bay Area – he thinks there’s storage in the museum basement 
• Iver reiterated that CaFE has some limitations and Vicki mentioned that EntryThingy has really improved 
• Ren will post about the call for entry this week and next 
  • Jan suggests that Ren add a sentence about work transportation for artists not in the Bay Area (i.e. that they may be able to drop work off at the Festival) 

FINELY CRAFTED in Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• Cheryl had dinner with a number of potters recently and discussed all chipping in to make awards more substantial – $3-5k
  • Note: ACGA doesn’t need to chip in more right now, but Cheryl may come back at some point and ask if we’re willing to contribute more
• The Sebastopol Center for the Arts wants this to be a big deal show
• Cheryl is looking for suggestions on glass jurors – email her if you have ideas
• Show is clay, glass, wood, and metal – they’re choosing the jurors, but are trying to partner with existing orgs like ACGA to each do a specific award 
  • Previously agreed upon ACGA award among $100
• They will showcase 80-90 pieces 
• Timeline/details:
  • Call open June 1 – Sept 1
  • Jury sept 2-8
  • Jury results Sept 11
  • Show opens Oct 16
  • In-person drop off Oct 18-20 (but also fine with work being mailed) 
  • Opening Oct 24
  • Take down Nov 30
  • Entry fees $35, $5 for 2 additional entries
• Ren requests information for May newsletter including explanation of how this is a national show, not just ACGA

Handwork2026 Requests

• If you want Handwork to announce an event on their social media, announcements are due by 15th of month prior to actual event
  • Can submit through portal or through Barbara 
• Handwork would like more videos for their website (1-3 min vertical format mp4 files)

Board of Directors Page (Mari)

• Mari asked James to update Board of Directors page and he suggests highlighting new board members and maybe showing how long board members have served 
• Everyone agrees we should keep it simple with photo and name, but change the way the link works so that it goes directly to personal website, not ACGA profile 
  • Emil points out that the button will have to change so it isn’t an “About Me” button, but name itself is a hyperlink to instagram or website depending on what the artist wants 
• Ren called out this is not a high-traffic page and it’s work to keep it updated, so we should keep it simple 
• Susie thinks we shouldn’t make a big change to this page if we’re going to redesign the website soon 

Mari will be out for her residency during the next two board meetings. Britt and Julie will work together to compile the agenda and Julie will conduct the meetings for May and June. 

Date of next meeting is May 18th, 2026

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

3/16/26 ACGA Board Meeting

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

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

Welcome (Mari) 

• Mari welcomed everyone

Proposal to Host Zoom for New Festival Jury Applicants (April)

• Randie Silverstein was not able to attend, but April explained that Randie is interested in putting together a Zoom session for people interested in applying to the jury to become festival eligible. Randie has served on several juries in the past (including ACGA jury) and felt some people were underprepared and could have used a session to help prepare for the jury process (similar to what we did to prepare people new to the festival last year). 
• Tamara and Britt will reach out to Randie to discuss planning and bring a proposal to the next board meeting 

Exhibitions Report

FIBER & FIRE in Sausalito (Deb)

• Show closed on March 12 and was very smooth with all pieces being picked up by noon the next day
• Broken pieces: ACGA will pay $100 to an artist whose piece was broken during installation, Sausalito Center For The Arts will cover the other broken piece with their insurance, as the incident occurred during the opening reception  
• What didn’t work well: 
  • There were some issues with other events/installations coinciding with drop-off and  installation of the show, despite clear communication of these dates
  • Vicki proposes we put something in contract in future with clear drop off/install time and make it clear that there won’t be other installation/events during that time
  • Mari suggests not providing a “not for sale” option for future gallery shows and noted that one artist changed from “for sale” to “not for sale” after being accepted, something we should try to prevent in the future. She also suggested making sure artists do not raise sale prices after acceptance.
• What did work well: 
  • Jan said central location with foot traffic helped a lot with sales 
  • Mari thinks that adding another medium (Fiber) made it more exciting
  • Vicki noted that it coincided with Valentine’s day which may have made for even higher than usual traffic 
• Jan gave a big thank you to Deb for putting on one of the most stressful, but also successful exhibitions we’ve had
• April asked about when artists will get paid – Deb said it should be in 3 weeks 
• Sales From Fiber & Fire
  • 54 Artists, 63 Artworks (ACGA)
  • Total sales (both ACGA & FiDi): $22,836 / 55 artworks
  • ACGA total sales: $15,128 / 32 artworks
  • ACGA F&F sales: $13,668 / 13 artworks
  • ACGA Corner Shop Sales: $1,460 / 19 artworks
  • Not counted: $760 in Corner Shop sales by an artist who was both an ACGA and FiDi member
• Exhibit Expenses: $1,500
  • *$1000 SCA (Exhibit Fee)
  • $300 American Craft Council (Juror Honorarium)
  • $100 Graphics
  • $100 Compensation for a broken piece
• Exhibit Income: $2,275
  • $2,275 Entry Fees (65 x $35)
• *SCA Exhibit Fee was $5,000. FiDi covered $4,000 / ACGA $1000

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

• Application went live yesterday (March 15) – using CaFE 

• We will run another ad next month in ACGA newsletter 
• Selected pieces are not for sale since it’s a museum show, but there’s potentially an opportunity to sell small pieces in the museum store (Iver is working to get more information on this possibility)
• Ren suggests promoting the open Call for Entry with the application link on social media and posting to the Google Group (with clay only in title) 

FINELY CRAFTED in Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• Finely Crafted is a national exhibition that will take place at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts this fall 
• Dates
  • Application period: June 1 – September 1 
  • Jury dates:  Sept 2-8 
  • Announcement to chosen artists: Sept 11 
  • Show dates: Oct 24 – Nov 29
• $35 entry fee and $5 per additional piece (10% discount for members of either organization)
• Sebastopol Center for the Arts receives 40%, artist receives 60% of sales
• Prizes
  • $300 1st place
  • $200 2nd place
  • $100 3rd place
  • Two $50 coordinator awards – Cheryl will get clarification on what this means 
  • Want ACGA to choose one clay award winner and one glass award winner
    • They’ve asked Cheryl to be the clay juror and we will need to choose a glass juror
    • We agreed these two prizes should be $100 each 
    • Ren suggests not calling it best in show if it’s not going to be a larger prize than 1st place, proposes maybe we can call it “ACGA award” 
• Publicity
  • Ren asks how soon we’ll get publishable info and Cheryl isn’t sure, but can find out 

NuMu in Los Gatos (Vicki)

• Emil is going to be working on proposal for NuMu in Los Gatos based on connection from Janet Wolf

Festival Report

General Festival Update (April)

• Publicity updates: 
  • April had initial meeting with Ruben Ramirez, our media consultant, and received initial publicity timeline
  • Emil is working on new design for festival banner 
  • April will give Emil access to images folder soon and will also share with James Aarons because he wants to refresh top banner on ACGA home page
• Discussion on images being not properly named or poorly photographed: 
  • We encourage everyone to name in specific way, but people often fail to do that which creates a lot of extra work to identify images (Note: unfortunately no way to force naming conventions in JotForm) 
  • Lee suggests we just say we won’t use your images if they’re not properly named, but Ren is concerned we don’t have enough photos already 
    • Ren notes that we have a number of photos that people have submitted in previous years (and have already been used in publicity) or photos that are not well photographed 
  • Ren will consider writing something for the newsletter about good images and April will try to improve next year’s registration with more clear photo instructions 
• Registration
  • We have 138 artists signed up (including Cobb Mountain Booth)
  • We haven’t gotten any new applicants since February 23 and are close to full, but want to make sure we have enough since a few people always drop out
  • April may do another registration nudge in the Google Group – Lee suggests making the spaces sound limited to put some pressure on
• Commercial booths: 
  • Sally did outreach to organizations and Annie is following up with them about commercial booths
  • Bagi will not do it this year because they can only be there Saturday
  • MonkeyStuff.com reached out (they sell tools and accessories for ceramic artists) and will have a booth this year 
• Festival job waiver pilot: 
  • So far we have 24 people requesting the waiver, this is enough demand so Annie can hire a few people, but not too many for us to handle 
• Payment submission issues: 
  • As we’ve discussed previously, we hit our payment submission limit (100 payments) faster than expected and we’ve had to keep a separate form 
  • A few people have slipped through the cracks and have paid, but haven’t submitted their registration form – April will continue trying to reach out to them

Festival Treasurer’s Report (Piper)

• From booth fees, tables, and job waiver fees we’ve brought in around $47,000  
• Piper will check in about one missing payment and one individual who may have wanted to upgrade. 
• For the artists who wanted 20’ booths but settled for 15’, it should be up to Annie to determine if they may ultimately be able to get 20’ booths
• Sean, April, and Piper have been working on putting together articles where top sellers share their business insights 

Financial Report

• Julie wasn’t present, but will present next month 

ACGA Archive (April)

• April would like to do something in appreciation of Forrest Merrill since he stored our archive boxes in his secure storage for over 2 years 
• Ideas
  • Ren suggests naming something after him to honor his legacy – potentially one of the awards at the Sebastopol and continue giving it in future shows as an award
  • Sean has an idea to call the sculpture garden the “Forrest Merril Sculpture Garden” at the ACGA show 
  • Susie has an idea to propose a scholarship in his name 

Membership Announcement (Emil)

• As part of our partnership with American Craft Council we’re offering their members 15% off our membership and they’re reciprocating 
  • Emil sent an announcement  on Google Group about this and he will also share something with Ren to post in newsletter about this
• Mari reminds the board to use ACGA logo in top left corner for official announcements in Google Group 

Google Workspace (Britt)

• Britt explained idea of having a shared Google Drive workspace for all our board files and proposed a folder structure
• We will start simple with one workspace account managed by secretary for centralized Google Drive (acgaboard@acga.net) with the future opportunity to create other @acga.net email addresses as needed
• Proposed structure: 
  • Shared Folder (“View Access” shared with all board members, “Edit Access” determined by committee lead for folder)
    • Agenda & Meeting Minutes (Britt)
    • Bylaws (Mari)
    • Finance Reports (Julie)
    • Festival (April)
    • Exhibitions (Vicki)
    • Membership (Emil)
    • Festival Jury (Tamara)
    • Communications (Ren)
  • Private Folder (No global “View access,” shared with specific individuals on need-to-know basis)
    • PRIVATE ACGA Finance
      • Festival Finance (Piper)
      • General Finance (Julie)
    • PRIVATE Festival Jury Scoring (Tamara)
    • PRIVATE Exhibition <Name> Jury Scoring (Exhibition Coordinator) 
    • PRIVATE Membership (Emil)
• Piper made a motion to spend $14/mo on one Google Workspace account and it passed unanimously 

ACGA Sponsorship of “Talking Out Your Glass” podcast (Mari)

• Mari encourages everyone to take a look at Chris’s email about ACGA sponsoring the “Talking Out Your Glass” podcast episode featuring Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, a glass artist closely connected to California.
• What sponsoring means
  • We are giving them $185 to sponsor this episode (no commitment to a specific number of episodes we’re sponsoring) 
  • They will use our logo and introduce us as sponsors
• Ren is wondering if we can just sponsor episodes featuring CA glass artists – this needs to be discussed further
  • Sean said this is a great podcast and there are about 4 sponsors per episode, but he isn’t sure it would be possible to just sponsor CA glass artists
  • Sean and Ren will meet to discuss 
• Other clay podcast-related ideas: 
  • Vicki is wondering we can connect with Red Clay Rambler 
  • Ren has an idea to invite Ben Carter to come out to the festival and do a podcast about it 

Date of next meeting is April 20th, 2026

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

3/16/26 ACGA Board Meeting

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

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

Welcome (Mari) 

• Mari welcomed everyone

Proposal to Host Zoom for New Festival Jury Applicants (April)

• Randie Silverstein was not able to attend, but April explained that Randie is interested in putting together a Zoom session for people interested in applying to the jury to become festival eligible. Randie has served on several juries in the past (including ACGA jury) and felt some people were underprepared and could have used a session to help prepare for the jury process (similar to what we did to prepare people new to the festival last year). 
• Tamara and Britt will reach out to Randie to discuss planning and bring a proposal to the next board meeting 

Exhibitions Report

FIBER & FIRE in Sausalito (Deb)

• Show closed on March 12 and was very smooth with all pieces being picked up by noon the next day
• Broken pieces: ACGA will pay $100 to an artist whose piece was broken during installation, Sausalito Center For The Arts will cover the other broken piece with their insurance, as the incident occurred during the opening reception  
• What didn’t work well: 
  • There were some issues with other events/installations coinciding with drop-off and  installation of the show, despite clear communication of these dates
  • Vicki proposes we put something in contract in future with clear drop off/install time and make it clear that there won’t be other installation/events during that time
  • Mari suggests not providing a “not for sale” option for future gallery shows and noted that one artist changed from “for sale” to “not for sale” after being accepted, something we should try to prevent in the future. She also suggested making sure artists do not raise sale prices after acceptance.
• What did work well: 
  • Jan said central location with foot traffic helped a lot with sales 
  • Mari thinks that adding another medium (Fiber) made it more exciting
  • Vicki noted that it coincided with Valentine’s day which may have made for even higher than usual traffic 
• Jan gave a big thank you to Deb for putting on one of the most stressful, but also successful exhibitions we’ve had
• April asked about when artists will get paid – Deb said it should be in 3 weeks 
• Sales From Fiber & Fire
  • 54 Artists, 63 Artworks (ACGA)
  • Total sales (both ACGA & FiDi): $22,836 / 55 artworks
  • ACGA total sales: $15,128 / 32 artworks
  • ACGA F&F sales: $13,668 / 13 artworks
  • ACGA Corner Shop Sales: $1,460 / 19 artworks
  • Not counted: $760 in Corner Shop sales by an artist who was both an ACGA and FiDi member
• Exhibit Expenses: $1,500
  • *$1000 SCA (Exhibit Fee)
  • $300 American Craft Council (Juror Honorarium)
  • $100 Graphics
  • $100 Compensation for a broken piece
• Exhibit Income: $2,275
  • $2,275 Entry Fees (65 x $35)
• *SCA Exhibit Fee was $5,000. FiDi covered $4,000 / ACGA $1000

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

• Application went live yesterday (March 15) – using CaFE 

• We will run another ad next month in ACGA newsletter 
• Selected pieces are not for sale since it’s a museum show, but there’s potentially an opportunity to sell small pieces in the museum store (Iver is working to get more information on this possibility)
• Ren suggests promoting the open Call for Entry with the application link on social media and posting to the Google Group (with clay only in title) 

FINELY CRAFTED in Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• Finely Crafted is a national exhibition that will take place at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts this fall 
• Dates
  • Application period: June 1 – September 1 
  • Jury dates:  Sept 2-8 
  • Announcement to chosen artists: Sept 11 
  • Show dates: Oct 24 – Nov 29
• $35 entry fee and $5 per additional piece (10% discount for members of either organization)
• Sebastopol Center for the Arts receives 40%, artist receives 60% of sales
• Prizes
  • $300 1st place
  • $200 2nd place
  • $100 3rd place
  • Two $50 coordinator awards – Cheryl will get clarification on what this means 
  • Want ACGA to choose one clay award winner and one glass award winner
    • They’ve asked Cheryl to be the clay juror and we will need to choose a glass juror
    • We agreed these two prizes should be $100 each 
    • Ren suggests not calling it best in show if it’s not going to be a larger prize than 1st place, proposes maybe we can call it “ACGA award” 
• Publicity
  • Ren asks how soon we’ll get publishable info and Cheryl isn’t sure, but can find out 

NuMu in Los Gatos (Vicki)

• Emil is going to be working on proposal for NuMu in Los Gatos based on connection from Janet Wolf

Festival Report

General Festival Update (April)

• Publicity updates: 
  • April had initial meeting with Ruben Ramirez, our media consultant, and received initial publicity timeline
  • Emil is working on new design for festival banner 
  • April will give Emil access to images folder soon and will also share with James Aarons because he wants to refresh top banner on ACGA home page
• Discussion on images being not properly named or poorly photographed: 
  • We encourage everyone to name in specific way, but people often fail to do that which creates a lot of extra work to identify images (Note: unfortunately no way to force naming conventions in JotForm) 
  • Lee suggests we just say we won’t use your images if they’re not properly named, but Ren is concerned we don’t have enough photos already 
    • Ren notes that we have a number of photos that people have submitted in previous years (and have already been used in publicity) or photos that are not well photographed 
  • Ren will consider writing something for the newsletter about good images and April will try to improve next year’s registration with more clear photo instructions 
• Registration
  • We have 138 artists signed up (including Cobb Mountain Booth)
  • We haven’t gotten any new applicants since February 23 and are close to full, but want to make sure we have enough since a few people always drop out
  • April may do another registration nudge in the Google Group – Lee suggests making the spaces sound limited to put some pressure on
• Commercial booths: 
  • Sally did outreach to organizations and Annie is following up with them about commercial booths
  • Bagi will not do it this year because they can only be there Saturday
  • MonkeyStuff.com reached out (they sell tools and accessories for ceramic artists) and will have a booth this year 
• Festival job waiver pilot: 
  • So far we have 24 people requesting the waiver, this is enough demand so Annie can hire a few people, but not too many for us to handle 
• Payment submission issues: 
  • As we’ve discussed previously, we hit our payment submission limit (100 payments) faster than expected and we’ve had to keep a separate form 
  • A few people have slipped through the cracks and have paid, but haven’t submitted their registration form – April will continue trying to reach out to them

Festival Treasurer’s Report (Piper)

• From booth fees, tables, and job waiver fees we’ve brought in around $47,000  
• Piper will check in about one missing payment and one individual who may have wanted to upgrade. 
• For the artists who wanted 20’ booths but settled for 15’, it should be up to Annie to determine if they may ultimately be able to get 20’ booths
• Sean, April, and Piper have been working on putting together articles where top sellers share their business insights 

Financial Report

• Julie wasn’t present, but will present next month 

ACGA Archive (April)

• April would like to do something in appreciation of Forrest Merrill since he stored our archive boxes in his secure storage for over 2 years 
• Ideas
  • Ren suggests naming something after him to honor his legacy – potentially one of the awards at the Sebastopol and continue giving it in future shows as an award
  • Sean has an idea to call the sculpture garden the “Forrest Merril Sculpture Garden” at the ACGA show 
  • Susie has an idea to propose a scholarship in his name 

Membership Announcement (Emil)

• As part of our partnership with American Craft Council we’re offering their members 15% off our membership and they’re reciprocating 
  • Emil sent an announcement  on Google Group about this and he will also share something with Ren to post in newsletter about this
• Mari reminds the board to use ACGA logo in top left corner for official announcements in Google Group 

Google Workspace (Britt)

• Britt explained idea of having a shared Google Drive workspace for all our board files and proposed a folder structure
• We will start simple with one workspace account managed by secretary for centralized Google Drive (acgaboard@acga.net) with the future opportunity to create other @acga.net email addresses as needed
• Proposed structure: 
  • Shared Folder (“View Access” shared with all board members, “Edit Access” determined by committee lead for folder)
    • Agenda & Meeting Minutes (Britt)
    • Bylaws (Mari)
    • Finance Reports (Julie)
    • Festival (April)
    • Exhibitions (Vicki)
    • Membership (Emil)
    • Festival Jury (Tamara)
    • Communications (Ren)
  • Private Folder (No global “View access,” shared with specific individuals on need-to-know basis)
    • PRIVATE ACGA Finance
      • Festival Finance (Piper)
      • General Finance (Julie)
    • PRIVATE Festival Jury Scoring (Tamara)
    • PRIVATE Exhibition <Name> Jury Scoring (Exhibition Coordinator) 
    • PRIVATE Membership (Emil)
• Piper made a motion to spend $14/mo on one Google Workspace account and it passed unanimously 

ACGA Sponsorship of “Talking Out Your Glass” podcast (Mari)

• Mari encourages everyone to take a look at Chris’s email about ACGA sponsoring the “Talking Out Your Glass” podcast episode featuring Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, a glass artist closely connected to California.
• What sponsoring means
  • We are giving them $185 to sponsor this episode (no commitment to a specific number of episodes we’re sponsoring) 
  • They will use our logo and introduce us as sponsors
• Ren is wondering if we can just sponsor episodes featuring CA glass artists – this needs to be discussed further
  • Sean said this is a great podcast and there are about 4 sponsors per episode, but he isn’t sure it would be possible to just sponsor CA glass artists
  • Sean and Ren will meet to discuss 
• Other clay podcast-related ideas: 
  • Vicki is wondering we can connect with Red Clay Rambler 
  • Ren has an idea to invite Ben Carter to come out to the festival and do a podcast about it 

Date of next meeting is March 20th, 2026

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

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

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

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

Absent: Vicki Gunter, Chris Johnson.   Guest: Barbara Savage.

The meeting began at 5:15pm.

Welcome (Mari)

Mari and Jan are working to update the ACGA Mission Statement on our website. They will share a revised statement for approval by the Board in the coming weeks. Mari asked the communications team to keep the homepage up-to-date at all times. Mari asked whether the registration form on the website could require physical addresses and digital marketing links such as Instagram or Facebook to help with regional mapping and grouping, since many addresses are missing from our proprietary membership database.  The Board discussed how publishing personal information such as address, email, or phone number could have implications for privacy and it was suggested that requiring only city and zip code might be sufficient for the artists’ profiles. Ren emphasized that we need all the data for where our members are located in our proprietary database and that there is no plan or suggestion that we should publish personal information. Emil will follow up with our website administrator to update requirements for the registration form and artist profile pages.

Mari let the board know that Piper is preparing the 2025 Festival Sales Report and will share it with the membership as soon as possible.

Nomination/Self-Nomination for the Board of Directors 2026 (Mari)

There will be four seats open on the Board at the end of the year. Nominations for new Board Members are open until November 23. The election will take place December 1-28 and results will be announced by December 31. Mari introduced guest Barbie Savage and announced that she would like to be on the ballot. Barbie is a ceramicist, retired from many years teaching high school ceramics, and now teaches at Clay Hands Studio in Fresno.  Several other ACGA members have also expressed willingness to be nominated.

Jury Update (Scott)

The Fall 2025 jury is underway. Of the 31 applicants, 30 work with clay and one works with glass. The five jurors will make their decisions in time for an announcement in our November newsletter. Scott noted that he’s been able to help several applicants with their presentations. He also expressed his appreciation for Tamara Danoyan’s help in getting things organized.

All-Member Meeting – January 2026 (Mari)

The Board discussed whether to have the All-Member Meeting as a hybrid meeting like our last one, or explore other models like in-person only and Zoom only.  The general consensus was to conduct a hybrid meeting from the Palo Alto Art Center as we did in January 2025.

Exhibitions: General

Mari proposed an honorarium for those who organize exhibitions since it’s such a huge amount of work. The exhibition committee will meet to discuss and propose a policy. Cheryl will contact Sebastopol Center for the Arts, following up on a proposed exhibition that Jan and Sally discussed with them earlier this year. Jan added that ACGA member Pierre Bounaud will be organizing an exhibition of Southern California member artists in the coming months at Studio Door, a gallery in San Diego.

Exhibitions: “Fiber & Fire” Update (Jan)

The show “Fiber and Fire” is coming together in collaboration with fiber/Dimensions, a Bay Area organization of fiber artists.  ACGA member Deb Sullivan is working on the logistics and all that goes with that.  The deadline to apply is mid-November and the show will be February-March 2026 at the Sausalito Center for the Arts.

Exhibitions: Santa Cruz Show (Iver)

Preparations continue for an exhibition of California ceramics at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, to be held September 2026-January 2027. The show will include 20 invited artists and about 40 juried artists.  California potters and sculptors are encouraged to apply between April 1-May 1, 2026.

Exhibitions: Arts of Fire (Mari)

“Arts of Fire”, organized by Board Member Vicki Gunter, earned $3290 in income. Expenses were $2391 and ACGA’s net income was $898.  Eight pieces sold during the exhibition, totaling $7305, an excellent outcome. The exhibition added 8 new ACGA members.

Financial Report, Moving Funds, 2026 Budget (Julie)

ACGA’s assets as of September 30 are $159,000.  Julie will send each committee a report of its income and expenses for the year-to-date so that they can generate their budgets for next year. Julie is looking into moving some of our assets into higher interest-earning accounts and will report more at the November board meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 6:45 pm

Next meeting: Monday, November 17, 2025 via Zoom