Fresh from our beautiful opening just a week ago, this is a post to honor all the behind the scenes work that makes a Celebration of Clay (aka "CoC") happen each year. The purpose here is to recognize all the parts. As well, the two recent talks by Celebration of Clay Committee Chairs, 2023 and 2024, are shared below.

It was wonderful being together, wasn't it? Never enough in-person gatherings with our clay community. 

Some time ago -- 50 years ago most definitely -- organizing for annual member shows started. New Mexico Potters and Clay Artists have a well-oiled system, yes we do. Let's hear history from you past organizers -- what do you remember? When did the People's Choice voting start, for example? Please leave your comments for us readers.

Photo by Anna Bush Crews.

This year's Committee -- Leonard Baca, Serit Kotowski, Sheila Miller, Charlotte Ownby, Jenna Ritter, Joey Serim, Cirrelda Snider-Bryan -- dedicated 8 months to meetings. Elements that come together for the CoC every year include: --searching for and applying to potential locations --coordinating the long line of volunteer jobs (edited for each year depending on the needs of the gallery) --the timeline --the online gallery and voting for People's Choice --the screening of images submitted --answering questions from member artists --creating a press release and submitting twice to media outlets --organizing and posting each artist to social media --deciding and contacting jurors --creating the online documents ... and more. Each year the Committee hones these systems through discussion. 

This year's team of Volunteers numbered 33! with 12 folks contributing money in lieu. Jobs range from giving help to members photographing their work (Judy Nelson-Moore, Lee Akins, Leonard Baca), putting together the binder of artist statements (Joey Serim), checking in the work at the gallery (Joan Eichelberger, Serit Kotowski), uploading the online gallery photos (Michael Thornton, Leonard Baca), greeting at the show (Nicole Merkens, Janeen Maas), serving food (Joanne DeKeuster, Christiane Couvert, Laura Huertas), offering studio as drop off place (Andrea Pichaida, Leonard Baca), writing a review (Amber Paz-Csibi, Susan Voss, Jim Romberg), photographing the exhibit (Anna Bush Crews, Stephanie Levy), transporting work (Jenna Ritter, Abby Richardson, Leonard Baca, Elaine Biery, Charlotte Ownby, Cirrelda S-B),  posting to the backside of Facebook and Instagram (Jenna Ritter, Lois Price, Charlotte Ownby, Erik Gellert, Cirrelda S-B.), dismantling the show (Melissa Alexander), tallying the People's Choice votes (Debi Smith), and more. This is the kind of involvement many of us enjoy because it allows us to become acquainted with the makers of the pieces we love seeing. A system that has an ulterior motive - getting us together.

"Explanation" photo by Anna Bush Crews.

Now for the speeches. Here is Leonard Baca's from CoC 2023: Inhabited Earth, held at Gallery Hózhó in Albuquerque. Members of the Committee last year were Sara D'Alessandro, Andrea Pichaida, Kathy Cyman, Leonard Baca, Chair.

New Mexico Potters and Clay Artists along with Gallery Hóhzó are pleased to have you here today, the opening of Inhabited Earth. 

My name is Leonard Baca, I am on the board of NMPCA and this year’s chair of the Celebration of Clay. I consider myself kind of a new-by clay and ceramics. I have been working with clay for about 12 years. I love it when I can communicate and work with a clay artist who have been working with clay for more than 30 years, it's amazing how they want to share their knowledge.  That is one of the goals of this group, to educate and share with others. 

The committee and members of the organization would like to thank Suzanne Newman Fricke and her staff for welcoming us to this beautiful gallery.

The Celebration of Clay is our annual member show. Last year we were in Taos, and the event in the past have been in Albuquerque, Abiquiu, Los Alamos, Ghost Ranch, Santa Fe and other cities.   I am glad to bring it back to Albuquerque. 

 If you have ever put your hands in clay, form it, felt it’s movement it comes alive. From the earth, we the artist create beauty. And as you put more time into it, the glazing, the firing the pieced keeps, developing and changing, this is my take on Inhabited Earth.  A talent God has given us to create. 

The opening to me, is a social event to meet with the Artist and you the community.  I like coming back and spending time with the art and getting to know it. You need to look at it in different angles, and different light, or just walk around it.  So, I hope you come back in the next 6 weeks to look at the work and experience the gallery.

I want to thank the committee who gave their time to make this event happen, Sara Lee D'Alessandro, Kathryne Cyman, and President of NMPCA Andrea Pichaida.  Also, the membership for entering their work and for taking on one of the many tasks needed to make this event.  One member we would like to acknowledge is Cirrelda Snider-Bryan for her work with our social media.

Now it is time for the awards.   We always had the previous winner of Best in Show to be part of the jurying, so I want to bring her up. Last year's winner was Sara Lee D’Alessandro, who will share with us the jurying process.

CoC 2024: 50 Years of NMPCA opening at Taos Ceramics Center. Photo by Anna Bush Crews.

And, here is Cirrelda Snider-Bryan's speech, from CoC 2024: 50 Years of NMPCA held at Taos Ceramics Center.

Thank you, Jules! 

Welcome to our show whose theme is 50 years of clay camaraderie! Long live New Mexico Potters and Clay Artists!

We are celebrating ourselves this year.

I am Cirrelda Snider-Bryan, board member for 3 years now, so happy to be with you all.

Before presenting the 6 awards, I wish to say thank you and give perspective. 

First, thank you Jules, for excellent communication and vision, for supporting this wide array of clay artists. Thank you, Georgia, for your vision for the Taos Ceramics Center, and organization. These are folks who engage in their own practices of creativity, and that matters because they know. 

Thank you to Andrea Pichaida, President of the board for 3 great years, who helped make this show happen. 

Thank you to our committee of 7 who grabbed the baton this year back in March, and have honored the true meaning of consensus in our planning and decision making. Please thank: Leonard Baca, Serit Kotowski, Sheila Miller, Charlotte Ownby, Jenna Ritter, Joey Serim, and me. 

Thank you Volunteers on this event – you all stepped up and make this show better for your involvement.

Thank you, Jurors, for giving of your time to let these pieces soak in and let them resonate in you, collaborating in your decisions: Betsy Williams, James Marshall, Jules Epstein.

Thank you to the board members of NMPCA who listen so well and are so humane. 

Thank you to our Members who answered the call to share the piece here in this room, in this final stage of the creation process – we find the piece we most want to share, that expresses us. NMPCA gives us this opportunity time and time again.

Lastly, want to thank you, JB, my partner for 41 years, who shares my love of clay, and is such a good listener and imagination harnesser.

At last year’s CoC opening I was so heartened by the talk given by Leonard who served as chair – I wanted us to hear these again:

"If you have ever put your hands in clay, form it, felt its movement -- it comes alive. From the earth, we the artist create beauty. And as you put more time into it, the glazing, the firing, the piece keeps developing and changing, this is my take on Inhabited Earth.  A talent God has given us to create."

This show is about us over 50 years, our banding together. Originally with snail mail newsletters so well-written and dial telephones and in people’s yards doing firings or at community centers like Heights in Abq.

This is about extending relationships with small local businesses: Taos Ceramics Center, N.M. Clay, Coyote Color and Clay, Santa Fe Clay, Abiquiu Inn, a conference center called Ghost Ranch …

This array of 65 artists is about lasting as an organization for 50 years. 

There have always been folks there to pass the baton to.

Why?

Is it our land?

What makes clay artists 

In NM

Want to band together? 

Camaraderie around clay.

Somehow, the relationship --between the land formed by volcanoes and the pulling apart of the crust upon this middle of the continent plate, and its inhabitants -- is accentuated with the material with the smallest particle size, that folks, after using plants to make baskets vessels, found this magical material to form water jars and cooking and drinking vessels in their hands –the Inhabited Earth again. So many minerals here to delight us?

Long live this kind of coming together! 

NM Potters and Clay Artists Folks have made systems to facilitate collaboration, jobs to sign up for, opportunities to gather, decisions to make together - we facilitate collaboration!

What matters is that we show up for each other. 

Common Good in Clay!!

Jurors do you want to say something? May I pass the baton to you?

Thank you for reading. If you haven't submitted a piece to Celebration of Clay in a while, 2025 will happen this coming spring.

Remember there's a comment function, and please share your thoughts!

-Cirrelda Snider-Bryan, Slip Trail editor

All photos by Anna Bush Crews, copyright 2024.