Hand in Hand 2025 - Celebrating Our Community!

Thank YOU for helping to make this year’s event a wonderful success!

Thank you to everyone who came together at Clay Art Center for the 2025 Hand in Hand Benefit & Auction. We celebrated our shared passion for clay, the impact we've created, and the future we're shaping through our mission, programs, residencies, and more. We also celebrated 14 honorees who have been taking classes at Clay Art Center for 15+ consecutive years: Karen Cohen, Susan Gans, Sondra Goldenberg, Jeffrey Janowicz, Wendy Kaufman, Susan Leifer, Stephanie Mark, Dale Oberlander, Renie Raiti, Ellen Salov, Sally Spielvogel, Victoria Sweet, Kyoko Takasaki, and Noriko Tanikawa. You can learn more about their stories on the Clay Dish Blog.

We are deeply grateful to our board, staff, teachers, volunteers, artists, students, and everyone who supports and loves Clay Art Center. A special thank you goes to the generous artists who donated their incredible work to our Hand in Hand Auction. Clay Art Center would not be the place it is without all of you. Hand in Hand is truly a reflection of what truly makes Clay Art Center so special!

Speaking at Hand in Hand this year, Clay Art Center Executive Director Emily Peck shared, “For nearly 70 years, Clay Art Center has been a thriving ceramic art center offering education, creativity, and community to the countless people who come through our doors or engage with us at events at community centers, schools, parks, senior centers, and online.

Throughout the year, we reach 5,000 students of all ages with hands-on ceramic programming. This includes 1,153 students who participate in our programming at no cost. This year we increased our free afterschool programming to the Port Chester community by 20% over the previous year. Our staff and teachers work hard to make these classes a fun and educational experience for our students. For example, our high school students visited Edith Read where they dug wild clay that they will process to make their own ceramics, while our younger students studied three-legged vessels from Ancient China to create their own interpretations. These are just two examples of the more than 4,000 Community Arts projects we fired in our kilns for groups including senior citizens, people with disabilities, new immigrants, refugees, and many others.

We are also excited to announce a grant we received from the NEA’s Creative Forces program to develop clay programs to improve the health, well-being, and quality of life for military service members, veterans, their families, and caregivers. This program fits the mission of our Community Arts program to get clay into the hands of those who need it most.

For those of you who visited the Gallery tonight, you’ve seen just a glimpse of the incredible diversity of our exhibitions. Over the course of the year, we present 11 exhibitions and shop features that celebrate the incredible range of ceramic artistry across the country. Our current shows include the juried exhibition Shake It Up, and a special feature by Fernando Martinez in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Our 50 studio artists and 4 resident artists bring creativity to life all year long—in their studios, Gallery, Shop, and auction. But just as inspiring is their commitment to community, shown in the way they share their knowledge, lend a hand, and come together to celebrate a special occasion.

If this seems like a lot, it is. We are bursting at the seams. Which is why we are hard at work on expansion. This past summer we were awarded $400,000 by the New York State Council on the Arts towards the design costs of a new space. As part of this process we are exploring how to incorporate our current two buildings and our previously purchased property across the street to expand our classes, artist spaces, exhibitions, and community programs. We have also been working with a consultant to plan for a capital campaign which will depend upon the generosity of individuals, foundations, and government sources. We are early in that process and will keep you all updated when we are ready to launch our capital campaign.

While this project will take a lot of support, today, we are focused on how to best meet the current needs of our community. One way we are achieving this in the short-term is with the creation of our first fully ADA-accessible classroom opening in early 2026. This new classroom, adjacent to the Annex classroom, will allow us to run additional handbuilding and wheel classes, workshops and community programs. We are excited to be removing barriers allowing everyone access to clay. Stay tuned for more information about this exciting new addition to Clay Art Center and save the date for a ribbon cutting in the new year!

Your support today will allow us to continue growing our current programming and mission as we look ahead to the future. While we are excited for the future possibilities, we also want to continue expanding our scholarships, community programs, and support for residency programs today which is why we need your ongoing support. We couldn’t do everything we do without the support of all of you, so thank you!”

“I would like to shine a spotlight on Clay Art Center community, a notable group of students, teachers, artists, staff, board, our 11 alley cats, and more. It is not only a gathering individual in one place to learn about clay but also symbolizes a meaningful connection, sense of belonging, offering support and welcoming atmosphere to members from all walks of life, and coming together in both happiness and adversity.” - Sally Ng Briggs, Board President

“Clay Art Center actually changed my life. I never had a passion before and now working with clay has enriched my life tremendously. Here, I have found encouragement and inspiration from so many talented people. It has truly been a gift to be part of this community.” - Karen Cohen, Hand In Hand 2025 Honoree

“Creative people in various media all have a “need” to make things, and here we’ve chosen to work with clay to express the ideas spinning around in our heads. We have a place here that not only affords us the opportunity to do that, but it provides a wealth of new ideas that help us go in new directions: with teachers and fellow students showing us new tools and techniques to try, or new materials to experiment with.” - Jeffrey Janowicz, Board Member, Hand In Hand 2025 Honoree

Thanks to your overwhelming generosity, we raised over $141,903 towards our goal of $150,000! You can still help us reach our goal by donating now through October 31.