9/21/26 ACGA Board Meeting

• Present: Cheryl Costantini, Sean Alcala, Barbara Prodaniuk, Iver Hennig, Vicki Gunter, Britt Jensen, Pierre Bounaud, Tamara Danoyan, Julie Taber, Piper Christine, Mari Emori, Jan Schachter, April Zilber, Chris Johnson, Susie Rubenstein, Ren Lee, Emil Yanos
• Absent: Lee Middleman
• The meeting began at 5:15 PM and ended at 7 PM.

Welcome (Mari) 

• Mari welcomed everyone
• Congratulated Britt on her wedding
• April spoke about her father’s passing and thanked the Board for the flowers and cards.
  • He was an avid supporter of ACGA artists’ work and helped answer questions about legal nonprofit matters 
• Katie Morris joined as a guest thanks to Barbara’s invite. She gave a short intro 
  • She has done the ACGA Festival for 4 years and she loves it
  • She thinks it’s a great festival with many serious buyers in attendance
  • She’s interested in the board, but not sure given other responsibilities

Festival Eligibility Jury (Tamara)

• Tamara and Britt are meeting with the jury tomorrow to do an introduction to the jury process 
• As soon as the application process closes, we’ll have the jury start filling out individual score sheets and then meet October 15 to review and make decisions
• Tamara plans to send out acceptance and rejection letters the week right after the meeting
• Right now we have 10 submissions, all clay, no glass unfortunately 
• Ren will post (and boost post) on Instagram to get more applicants in this final week
• April suggests doing another Google Group announcement – especially encouraging people to tell their friends who they think might be ready to apply 

Exhibitions

Santa Cruz (Iver)

• The show is officially open until January 3 and the opening had a great turnout
• Iver says the team at the museum has been great to work with
• Thanks to all the ACGA members who came for the opening 
• There will be an open mic with some of the artists and people who have been part of ceramics in the area in November
• Mari thanked Iver for all his hard work
• Every 1st Friday is free admission to the museum
• Susie brought up that there’s a binder with all the artists talking about where they got started – nice to have personal history
• Iver has done some interviews with artists in the show and will post on YouTube shorts 

Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• Application window is closed (over 200 submissions) and notifications have been sent out
• Sebastopol Center for the Arts has been in touch with Ren about marketing the show
• Based on her experience and Iver’s experience, Cheryl thinks there’s a lesson learned to try to find exhibition partners who are organized and have mutual interest – she feels their experiences with these two exhibitions have been a lot easier than some others in the past where partners were less bought-in

NuMu (Vicki)

• The museum is still mulling on this, so we don’t know anything yet, but Vicki is still in touch 

Festival Report 

General updates (April)

• April acknowledged the suggestion to do away with valet parking – she brought up that this is supportive for older/more mobility impaired visitors 
  • They discussed this at the last Festival committee meeting and Sean had a suggestion to staff the parking lot ourselves – we wouldn’t valet, but we would monitor the lot so folks who need the proximity can use it – to be discussed further 
• Annie suggested changing artist check-in/load in time to officially start at 9AM Friday to allow opportunity for rental tables to arrive in time – people would be able to start before, but no tables before 9AM
• 4 individuals were interested in talking at length about the festival and April will be doing phone “interviews” with them – she’ll bring feedback to the committee
• The festival committee will not meet this month since there’s no pressing agenda and need for some time to do individual work

Festival treasurer’s report (Piper)

• Festival finance from this year is almost done: 
  • 1 person needs to provide receipts for reimbursement 
  • 1 artist needs to confirm their sales amount
  • 1 artist needs to pay festival commission
    • Piper will remind them about eligibility in future – April confirmed the contract says they would forfeit participating for 1 year
    • April will also get involved in communications with this person
• Piper suggests we maybe add late fees for next year
• Piper will use the ACGA logo in future festival-related communications with participants so that the emails do not come across as scam emails

Financial Report (Julie)

• Assets: $183K (including what’s in PayPal) 
  • $43k in Fidelity
  • $5k in PayPal
  • Rest is in bank accounts
• We lost money in August, but that’s because we had a lot of festival expenses coming through and all the income from the festival was in previous month
• Net revenue for 2026 = $20k 
• We are under budget on membership by $12k – that’s because a lot comes in in December 
• We made $5k more in revenue than we budgeted on the festival 
• We were $2.5k under budget on expenses for the festival 

Report on Madhvi Subrahmanian’s Artist Talk and the Global Ceramic Heritage Stamps Exhibition (Mari)

• Madhvi Subrahmanian’s artist talk took place at Atherton Library on September 15, in collaboration with Atherton Library, Atherton Arts Foundation, and ACGA 
  • Madhvi is a member of the Geneva-based International Academy of Ceramics (IAC), a large international ceramics organization
  • Originally ACGA was asked to help with live streaming, but after reviewing the statistics from last year’s artist talk and considering the lecture’s length, we thought this maybe wasn’t the best way to promote the event – in the end we helped them promote through the ACGA newsletter and Google Group
  • Atherton Library is a great venue for small educational events
  • Mari pointed out that hosting artist talks is a great way to introduce visiting international artists and their work to our community while they’re in the Bay Area 
• The Global Ceramic Heritage Stamps Exhibition was a traveling exhibition of the IAC and was held at the Santa Clara Asian Art Center from September 12 to 20. It was curated by ACGA members Guangzhen “Po” Zhou and Yilin “Rebecca” Sun. 
  • We’ve previously featured Po’s article about his journey around the world collecting stamps in our newsletters, and we helped promote Po’s exhibition this time

Define ACGA’s Role in Events and Set Logo Use Guidelines (Mari)

• Mari put together guidelines for when/how to use the ACGA logo
• We will discuss the guidelines at next month’s meeting since not everyone has had a chance to review them

2027 Leadership: Presidential Succession Without a VP and New Board Member Recruitment (Mari)

• Jan explained that the vice president typically steps up to become president, though this year presents challenges since there is no current vice president and several board members are planning to step down.
• Mari encouraged someone on the board to step up to the president role and that we should definitely have a VP so future succession is more clear
• Barbara is going to step down from the board/festival committee this year, but has already invited a number of members to attend board meetings and see if they’re interested in joining the board (Katie Morris who was in attendance was one of these people) 
• Vicki is wondering if it’s a good idea to invite someone who has never been on a board, there was discussion that this is okay as long as they’re committed and here for the right reasons
• Katie Morris mentioned James Aarons as a potential board member – Cheryl spoke up and said she has asked him in the past and will try to reach out to him again 
• Ren mentioned that several people said they were interested during the festival and Britt recorded their names so we can follow up
• Mari suggested we post in the newsletter/Google Group. After some discussion it was decided that the Google Group was most appropriate 
• Emil asked about whether board members needed to be members of ACGA – Julie clarified that it is a requirement, but anyone interested in the board could easily become a member, they don’t need to be an artist
• Chris is wondering if we can find people who are experienced professionals who have been on boards and grown nonprofit orgs 
• How we speak about the board
  • Ren brought up that it’s important that we specify this is a position focused on service, not prestige 
  • Julie brought up that this is “working” board
  • Cheryl brought up that this is NOT a “fundraising” board
• Britt will draft a letter that we can send to the Google Group 

Other Topic – Glass Artist Interviews for Newsletter (Ren)

• Our newsletter has interviewed every single glass artist who responded to our request for an interview, and we’re now struggling to balance our newsletter with glass coverage
• Chris offered to follow up with some people and can also make a visit to BAGI 

Date of next meeting is October 19, 2026

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

8/17/26 ACGA Board Meeting

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

The meeting began at 5:15 PM and ended at 7:10 PM.

Welcome (Mari) 

• Mari welcomed the group and congratulated everyone who participated in the festival 
• Mari reminded everyone that the formal name is “ACGA Clay and Glass Festival,” not “Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival” – this is important because there’s one with a similar name 
• Our guest Dan Osorio introduced himself – He’s a ceramic artist who used to live in Santa Cruz and now lives in Palm Springs. His work involves porcelain thrown pieces and underglaze illustration. He’s shown at the festival for two years and is interested in getting more involved with the board, potentially with a focus on social media! 

Board Leadership and Succession Planning (Mari)

• Mari reminded everyone to reach out to anyone who might be a good fit for the ACGA board. She noted the best way to learn about how the organization is run is for interested folks to join a board meeting. 
• Mari reminded everyone that this is her last year serving as president. She thinks it would be good to select someone who has been a board member to step up because they understand how it works. 

Financial Report (Julie)

• Currently have $202,330.51 in assets 
  • Clarification on undeposited funds line item (~$17,510.03): there are checks that were received in July, but not deposited until August 
• Julie is moving money over from PayPal and into the bank
• Currently have $39,554.90 in income so far this year (mostly from the Festival)
  • A big chunk of income will also come in December from memberships 
• Julie projects that our income will exceed our expenses this year
  • We’re about half way through what we budgeted on our expenses ($140k for whole year and we’re almost to $80k) – Note: we still have a few expenses that need to come through for the festival 
• Note: Piper has written a $32k check to Messenger Events since July books closed – this is not currently included in the financials, but we’re still under budget 

Festival Report 

General updates (Piper presented April’s notes)

• Critiques and potential changes for next year
  • Consider doing away with valet parking – it’s been progressively less fruitful 
    • This year we lost $1290 on valet service (similar to last year, but 2x as much as 2024)
      • ACGA pays $3890 
      • Cost to people parking = $13 per person (and expected to leave a tip)
      • 200 people utilized this service
    • Lee asked about cost to break even – we would need to charge about $20 to break even if we paid $3890 and had 200 people utilize it
    • Festival committee will discuss this further
  • On Friday some tables aren’t there by the time people are setting up, would it make sense for check in to start at 9am (So check in windows would be 9-11am, 11am-1pm, 1-3pm)
    • Barbara said she likes early time because it gets so hot, she suggests that people who need tables should sign up for later time slot
  • Jan brought up that check-in tent wasn’t staffed for several hours on Friday – not sure if this is a Messenger Event issue or a festival job issue
    • Piper will bring this up with April and Messenger events
  • We need to remind artists that if there’s an emergency, artists can call 911 themselves rather than go find someone in the art center
  • Thinking of raising food truck fee (it’s currently $500) to $550 
    • They’ve been paying by check and one check got lost and some are late → would be nice to have them pay online and this increase would cover our processing fees
  • Demo artists were running over
  • Throwdown sound system could use improvement 
    • Vicki clarified that the mics that Iver worked hard to get wouldn’t work unfortunately → it would be really great to have a cordless mic set up in the future 
  • Job waiver program 
    • 25 artists paid to get out of doing a job and allowed Messenger events to hire extra staff, especially to help during Sunday evening crazy time 
    • Messenger Events complaint – non-festival participant volunteers were taking hours away from Messenger event staff 
• How it went
  • 10,000 estimated attendees (from Laura giving intuitive sense based on what she’s seen at other festivals)
  • Moving artist party to Historic Courtyard seemed to go well and PAAC is happy to let us use that space again next year
• Throwdown 
  • This year we had 2 volunteers from Cobb Mountain who helped Vicki and Iver and it worked really well
    • No one signed up originally, so Laura asked Cobb Mountain – wasn’t an official job for them 
  • Thanks to Iver for making trophies, we should figure out who will make them next year 
  • Great to expand geographic area – we had more contestants from Santa Cruz Mountains 
  • Jennifer Hennig, a new throwdown coordinator, did a great job
  • Vicki had a fun celebrity moment and was recognized at Clay People a few weeks later as the pottery throwdown MC!!
  • Mari is wondering how we can better promote Clay People as throwdown sponsor – festival committee will discuss this further 
• Piper thinks there were about 60 responses to the festival artist survey so far and someone will share feedback soon 
• Mari asked if it would be possible to get feedback from members who attended the Festival but were not participants
• Ren has an idea to offer local supply stores a table space to promote their business at the festival (maybe a 5×10 booth) – Mari clarified that they were already offered this – we should revisit this, festival committee will look into it

Festival treasurer’s report (Piper)

• Still some expenses coming in – we are over and under in a few places
  • Security was under budget 
  • Office supplies/misc is over budget, but that’s because we stocked up on water bottles, tote bags, and pens (so this is 2-3 years of expenses)
• Clarification on some budget items
  • Festival producer = contract fixed fee to Messenger Events
  • ME staff = people they hire for day-of
  • Maintenance = janitorial services
  • Sanitation = porta potties + renting extra trash cans 
• We are currently slightly under budget, but will likely have a few expenses roll in 
• Reconciliation is about 95% complete.  With current artist sales totals, ACGA’s income from commissions will be $71,961.35.  This is almost $4K more than 2025
• There was approximately $540k in artist sales

Festival Jury (Tamara/Britt)

• August 18 info session
  • We have an online session tomorrow (Aug 18) night to provide more details on how to have a successful jury application 
  • Promoting: 
    • Tamara will post to Google Group
    • Britt will post to social media – will also send link so that we can all promote on our own social media 
• Updating festival jury webpage
  • 3 options for how we talk about jewelry, mosaic, and stained glass artists 
    • Option 1 – require all artists to create their primary clay or glass components
    • Option 2 – require only jewelry artists to create their primary clay or glass components
    • Option 3 – allow commercially manufactured components for all three categories
  • Discussion on whether to include fused glass in this list 
    • Ren suggests reaching out to jewelry artists so they can be part of the discussion 
    • Sean said there was an instance of an artist using decals (which can be considered commercial patterns), he’s not sure about the rules related to clay artists 
    • Ren is wondering why this would be added about fused glass artists, it’s still transformed by heat – Cheryl thinks it’s because it could involve less creativity, but not necessarily 
    • There’s general consensus that fused glass artists are covered under general guidelines 
    • Ren points out it has only been a few years since stained glass artists have been admitted and isn’t sure where the mosaic info on the website came from 
    • Vicki thinks we can leave a lot of this up to the jury’s discretion 
    • Lee is having trouble with option 2 because this has been discussed before – he’s worried about artists leaning more on technology and less on creativity 
      • Mari clarified that we still require an artist process statement which is good to prevent mass manufacturing or heavy technology utilization without creativity
      • Cherly points out that this is a slippery slope that could be extended to buying commercial glazes  – she wants to bring this back to the core about bringing people together who are authentic and passionate about what they’re making 
      • Vicki brings up whether we should say something about no work being accepted that was created using AI
    • Piper likes the line that work with minimal artistic transformation is not eligible
    • Tamara points out that etching on glass can be amazing, but there’s no heat involved
    • Lee proposes we stick with what we have given the proximity to the jury date, we reviewed what we have on the website currently 
    • We voted to take the two paragraphs out of the website titled “note to jewelry and mosaic artists” as well as “note to clay artists” 
      • Vicki proposed the motion this and Cheryl seconded
      • Passed unanimously 

Exhibitions Report

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

• Silica exhibition opening September 4 – the Friday night opening is free
• All pieces delivered to Iver have made it to the museum 
• Every first Friday is free until it closes in January 

FINELY CRAFTED in Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• Applications rolling in 
• Confusion about ACGA contributing money 
  • First we said $300, then we said more, then Sebastopol Center for the Arts said they didn’t want more
  • Where we’ve landed: $500 total ($250 for clay and $250 for glass) – ACGA will be credited, but the awards are being decided by people outside ACGA 
  • Ren moved we approve $500 for this exhibition and Piper seconded
    • Unanimously approved

Fresno Show “Standing on Their Shoulders” (Ren)

• Ren is participating in this October show
• She encourages anyone to apply if they have work that speaks to the contribution of their elders or struggle for equality
• Ren will be reposting about it and encourages everyone to share

Handwork (Barbara) 

• We got some coverage on festival from Handwork – not as much as she had hoped for, but it was well done
• Silica SiO2 show is up on the page, but Finely Crafted show is not yet up
• Handwork exhibit at Fresno Museum of Art is up right now showing from Forest Merrill collection 

Date of next meeting is September 21, 2026

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.

• 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