Letter From the President

A new year, a new day.  My resolution this year is easy, cause I had the same resolution last year: less thinking, more doing.  While less thinking may sound like a bad thing, especially when you're doing something like talking or driving, less thinking is actually doing your mind a favor.  My thinking is mostly about two things: what I should have done in the past, and what I want to do in the future.  Focusing on being in the moment and what I can do right now is my new year resolution.

This dovetails nicely with my goals for the ACGA. Just in case you didn't know, I was overwhelmingly voted in as your president for another 2-year term.  It's true no one ran against me, so a landslide was the forgone conclusion.  Victory is sweet, let me tell you.  With two more years to go, I want to do a better job helping guide the ACGA, and that means more of the "doing" thing.  My goal, in a nutshell, is to make ACGA membership something recognizably and tangibly beneficial to all its members, such as creating more access to resources like marketing support and networking with peers.  Also, I notice whenever ACGA members get together, they just love talking shop, hanging out, and brainstorming together.  I want to create more opportunities for member events that are free, fun, and provide occasions to get together and... do something!

At the recent annual retreat we made a list of ideas to help achieve this goal, and you can read my report below to get more details.  The next day I thought of a fun event the help our members with Facebook networking, called "Liking Me, Liking You"  which Erin McGuiness and I are going to host on  Thursday, March 1.  Again, please read details below to participate in person or virtually.

Finally, we have a new member to welcome the Board of Directors, Kathy Pallie.  I want to extend a warm welcome to Kathy, and encourage our members to check out her work right here.

I hope everyone has a healthy and happy 2012.

Whitney

Report from the Annual Retreat

This is a brief summary of the goals and ideas outlined during our retreat.

• Putting up videos of members on the ACGA website and Facebook page.  The videos could be demonstrations, studio tours, interviews, etc.  
• Set aside and area at the Clay and Glass Festival for showing the work of brand-new ACGA members.
• Working on outreach through schools and education. Being a mentor. Legitimizing art making as a real job.
• Hiring a professional for ACGA's social media and membership development.
• Promote member Open Studios during the holiday months with an email blast to customers.
• Develop the ACGA customer email list, especially during the Clay and Glass Festival and other exhibitions.
• Developing partnerships with clay and glass related businesses.
• Get together more often! 

Do any of these ideas get you excited?  Have an idea of your own that you think could enhance your experience with being a member of the ACGA?  Post your comments here.

Letter from the President

The end of the year drains away like sand in an hourglass.  It's hard to think past the all-encompassing holidays, but there is life beyond December.  First and foremost, the annual ACGA Board Retreat has been scheduled for Saturday, January 7, from 10 am to 4 pm in Oakland.  Please see retreat details in this newsletter to get more details.  The retreat is a great opportunity to meet and mingle with your ACGA colleagues, discuss important issues affecting the membership, and also, get a free lunch.  I just love free lunch.

A good retreat is a lively retreat with a full house, so I invite all members, exhibiting and associate, to attend and contribute their ideas and thoughts.  ACGA is a volunteer organization, and we cannot improve or make the ACGA more relevant to you life if we don't know what you're thinking.  So don't be shy!  Some topics on this year's roster will cover membership development through schools and workshops, online marketing and media, and creating a Bay Area wide open studio tour of member studios.  Do any of these topics get you thinking or perk your interest?  If so, be sure to RSVP, bring your notebook and pen, and prepare to participate!

I wish everyone a sane and pleasant holiday, and a very happy new year.

Whitney

Letter From the President

What are you grateful for?  This is the question at this time of year.  I was thinking about this as I was pushing my way through the grocery store trying to shop for Thanksgiving dinner.  The buzz in the air was tense, if not downright hostile around the meat counter, where I picked up a tag that was 18 numbers away from being called.  I looked around at the people surrounding me and noticed my body was showing physical signs of panic: shallow breathing, fluttery heartbeat, stomach tightening, my face pulling into a tight ball of frustration.  I thought, "Why don't these people go home so I can shop in peace?"  I know people were looking at me and thinking the exact same thing.

Melting down in the grocery store while trying to pick up a turkey suddenly seemed like the worst kind of holiday cliche: Woman Having Holiday Nervous Breakdown in Public.  Why, exactly, did I need to shop in peace? I live in Oakland.  Shopping in peace is for people who live somewhere else. Why was it a big deal to wait 10 minutes for one of the harried meat counter people finally get to my number?  What is the point of getting all upset because I can't have what I think I want-- a world emptied of people getting in the way--  which is impossible to have anyway?

These thoughts, which I pondered while waiting my turn at the turkey counter, led me to this: It's not all about gratitude.  I have a lot to be grateful for, but that doesn't help me in moments like this.  It's also about being of service to other people.  Helping others is something the has some action to it, movement, and focus.  Giving people your time and attention is the most valuable thing all of us have to give.  Whether that's volunteering your time at a non-profit or showing more patience and kindness to annoying people getting in the way in the grocery store, taking the time to help other people get through life is a contribution almost all of us can make, every day, in every interaction we have.  I'm working on it.

I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with edible food, annoying people we could practice being patient with, and also, people we love and care about.

Whitney

Letter from the President

Every once in a while I have to write a president's letter that is not about studio practice or creative philosophy, but tends to some straight up ACGA business.  This is one of those times!  What's on my mind right now is gathering up some willing and warm bodies who are interested in serving as board members.  Why serve?  Because the only thing that keeps our sweet little organization humming along are the people who take the time to make it happen.  We need voices from our group to help decide how to spend money, where to hold exhibits, what new projects we should undertake, and most of all, how we can improve.  Being a board member is mostly about showing up once a month to our board meetings, paying attention, and caring about our glass and ceramic art community.  Who can serve?  Anyone who is an ACGA member, exhibiting or associate.  Meetings are usually not an artist's favorite thing to do, but we try to make it painless by meeting for dinner beforehand, and keeping the meetings focused, and occasionally hosting at different locales. Thinking about it?  Give me a call or send me an email so I can talk you into it!

Some other news:  I'm happy to announce that Forrest Lesch-Middleton has agreed to step in as ACGA's new vice-president after Cynthia Siegel recently stepped down.  I want to thank Cynthia for her sure-footed and practical point of view, which I deeply appreciated when I needed her opinion or advice.  You may have caught Forrest's beautiful work on the cover of Ceramics Monthly magazine recently.  It's an honor to be working with Forrest, and I hope you will take a moment to check out Forrest's work at flmceramics.com http://www.flmceramics.com/FLM_ceramics/Welcome.html.

Letter from the President

Plant, tend, harvest, repeat.  This mantra was going through my head recently as I tore out the last of our summer beans, which were so prolific this year I had to spend a day canning dilly beans back in July, or face being totally overwhelmed by more beans than me or all of my friends could eat.  I'm just learning how to garden in the past couple of seasons.  After years of planting a bunch of stuff in my yard that quickly died of neglect, I finally figured out how plants thrived with a bit of attention and consistent watering.  It's become my habit to check in on the garden daily and make sure everything is coming along, and I'm rewarded with flowers and good things to eat.  In the winter, when the garden is basically fallow and rains take care of the plants that are there, I make plans for next year's garden, and always hope for better results.

Gardening is really not much different than being an artist and running a studio. You come up with your ideas, you run with them for a while and make work, you (hopefully) sell it off or place it in loving homes, and then you start all over again.  Plant, tend, harvest, repeat.

Of course there is the fallow period, the time where you are ready for new things, new ideas, new work, but it's not quite there yet.  If you're like me, and I tend to think I'm like most artists, I get a bit anxious when I'm in that fallow time.  I start copying myself for lack of anything better to do, I question why I'm even an artist, and I have dark thoughts about my longevity as a creator.  It's can be a challenging period of time, and I have no quick fixes.  I try to feed my brain with inspiring art, get lots of sleep, and don't get too invested in any one thing I may be working on in the studio, but treat it all as practice until I find that vein of gold again.  Practice is all we're doing anyway, nothing is really done or final in our work until we can simply no longer make it. What do you think?

Happy Fall!
Whitney

Letter From the President

I want to say "thank you" to all of our exhibitors and support staff who participated in the Clay and Glass Festival in Rinconada Park this year. Special recognition goes to our Festival producer, Mary Lou Atkins who made the transition to the park seamless, and to our publicist, Sharon Poyner,  who drummed up press attention for our group and individual members. Any remaining skepticism that they show would suffer from being in a new, temporary location was vanquished by strong sales for many exhibitors, and good attendance by our loyal customers. I think everyone agreed that the park was a wonderful place to hold the Festival, and many attendees did not even notice the new location!

So, what's next? As I'm writing this we are in the waning days of summer, which always brings mixed feelings of sadness and dread, a holdover from the many years of attending school and the loss of freedom it brought every September. Even to this day I cannot look at a yellow school bus without feeling anxiety. Maybe it's time for me to get over that. Now that I run my own life without much interference from outside authorities, September is a time to feel a renewed sense of energy after summer vacation. There is the holiday season coming up, which always holds promise for lots of sales and an opportunity to introduce the new work I've been rolling around in my brain. Then, there's also the recognition that I was just here, a year ago, and the holiday season is going to be over before I know it, as will the next year, and the year after that. Maybe that's what fall does to all of us. It reminds us that everything is temporary, even 12 years of school, time goes by so fast, and it's all going to be over before we know it. Dang, can I have just one more month of summer... please?