Laying the Groundwork

by Jennifer Martin

The Clay Studio’s new building rises up from the ground as I write this essay.

I am grateful that my lifelong love of building has led me to serve as executive director of this organization be- cause building has always been central to The Clay Studio’s mission. Whether it is a pot, a community, an artist’s skill set, or a new building, we at The Clay Studio build things together. In 1974, the five founders recognized the value of working together in a shared space. They knew they were building something valuable but could not imagine how the organization would amplify their initial ideal, building a community that serves tens of thousands of people in Philadelphia and around the world each year nearly half a century later.

From those first five artists, The Clay Studio now has twenty-one staff members, almost one hundred in-house artists, and annually serves nearly 10,000 kids and adults through classes, and over 50,000 people through free art viewing and making programs. With this level of impact, both at home and across the globe, we knew our community deserved a building to match the power of clay in our lives. With an outpouring of support from our generous community, we were able to raise the funds necessary to support the construction of the most expansive purpose-built center for ceramic art in the United States.

To us at The Clay Studio, the strength of our community is the true foundation of the building. Long before we put a shovel in the ground, we formed a plan to strengthen our relationship with our future neighborhood. Josie Bockelman, then the director of education, began to expand the existing Claymobile programming in South Kensington, our new neighborhood, as a way of earning our place in this already culturally rich area. She and Jennifer Zwilling, our curator, worked together to engage our neighbors in helping us reexamine how we present ceramic art in our galleries. Together with our current community we discussed how to make our offerings relevant to as wide an audience as possible.

Making Place Matter marks an evolution for The Clay Studio. This exhibition inaugurates our new home in South Kensington, a state-of-the-art space for clay, and initiates our new curatorial approach: to ensure that every member of our community feels a sense of agency when they walk into the gallery.

This historic move inspired us to consider the essential importance of place, leading us to the theme for this inaugural exhibition. Each of the three artists in Making Place Matter have deep connections to The Clay Studio and to their own places in the world. Originally from Peru, Kukuli Velarde moved to Philadelphia twenty-five years ago to join our Resident Artist Program. Molly Hatch’s first major exhibition was at The Clay Studio in 2010, an exploration of her New England ancestral roots, still a central theme in her practice today. We were privileged to host North Carolina-based Ibrahim Said as a guest artist in 2015, whose magnificent skill was first learned at his father’s knee in the pottery center of Fustat, Egypt. Each of these artists harnesses clay’s potential, shaping their individual expression of cultural identity.

A reflection of our vision for the exhibition is the team that has brought it to life. Jennifer Zwilling and Josie Bockelman’s insightful text illustrates how making something with your own hands can deepen and democratize an art viewing experience. Dr. Kelli Morgan, our program evaluator, contextualizes our exhibition and the curatorial model within the present moment, and Elizabeth Essner reflects on the cultural, historical, and personal contexts within the work of each artist in Making Place Matter.

Our Exhibition Council and our team, including Ana Gabriela Jiménez and María Albornoz, are reflected throughout these pages as they share their experiences and insights about the community-centered process. Raymond Rorke, Communications Designer, masterfully wove all these elements together into this beautiful publication. Together with the powerful words and work of our artists, this catalogue represents our vision of a truly collaborative process; it is a blueprint for our future in a new home.

Not unlike the give and take of working with clay, The Clay Studio has shaped and has been shaped by the people who inhabit it. As we open our doors, welcoming both our longtime communities and our new neighbors, it would be easy to think that our mission is fulfilled. But we know it takes building more than just walls for our new home in South Kensington to become a place. As The Clay Studio enters this new era, Making Place Matter demonstrates how we can carry what we have built along with us while laying the groundwork for the future.