What Clay Means to Me: Scholarship Students at Clay Art Center

Scholarship recipients Jani, Dale, and Isaith share their stories about finding their artistic community at Clay Art Center and the impact their time here has had on their lives.

Scholarships give youth and adult students at Clay Art Center the opportunity to explore ceramics education, community engagement, and creative joy that they otherwise not have been able to access. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, Clay Art Center has awarded nearly 10,000 scholarships over the last 15 years, giving hundreds of students the opportunity to participate in classes, workshops, and summer camps. These scholarships offer students of all ages a safe, inclusive space to explore their imagination and become part of a welcoming ceramics community. Some students who have received scholarships at Clay Art Center were kind enough to talk to us about their experiences.

Jani in the Clay Art Center Gallery

For Jani, the scholarship was only the beginning. After finding Clay Art Center around 2021, at a time when she was getting back into art and wanted to try ceramics, Jani was wowed by the extensive facilities and the teachers. Jani reflects that, “I don’t know what I was looking to accomplish. I wanted to learn the wheel. And I wanted to really expand my creativity and incorporate it in my artistry, because I was doing painting and illustrating, and doing sculptures and wood work, but I didn’t know where to start with [ceramics]. The last thing I thought when I started here was that it would turn into so much more. I just wanted to learn something new, and I definitely did that, and more.” Four years later, Jani now works as the Program Assistant at Clay Art Center, while she also pursues her degree in Sculpture at Purchase College - something Jani realized she wanted to do after exploring ceramics. Jani credits Clay Art Center and her teachers with broadening her horizons and opening doors, and says she’s still always learning: “I love talking about art and ceramics in a safe space, where it’s not being critiqued or judged in any way shape or form, it’s just we’re all learning something new and sharing it with each other. I get to be inspired by our community.”

Dale standing in front of Matt Wilt’s Insignificant Other

Dale originally came to Clay Art Center through the Cancer Support Community Greater NY & CT at Gilda's Club, and she hoped to experience the therapeutic effects of clay: “I was hoping to have a relief of pain and to accomplish something with my hands that my body was no longer able to do, which is to express myself.” Dale found so much relief and joy in her classes that she hoped to attend classes with more regularity, and the scholarship paved the way for her to do that. When she first started attending classes, Dale was almost a complete beginner at ceramics, but she found that help was never far away, in classes or Open Studio. Dale says that Studio Manager August Brosnahan in particular helped her to navigate the complex process of glazing, “A lot of the chemicals, their names and the glazes, are a foreign language, and were initially very, very difficult for me to grasp. But August has taken his time on numerous occasions to show me this, to explain this, to help me understand something better. He embraced me as a sister, and just said, listen, little sister - which, again, is so odd because I'm older than everybody - but it was as though he was saying, listen, little sister, I don't want you to be confused, I can help explain it in a simple way. And that took some of the fear and out of that process.” Dale also found empowerment as a Black woman in exploring African symbols and artifacts, and incorporating them into her art. This influence has informed a whole series of pyramids, which Dale notes have been a formative experience, shaped with the help of teachers like Artist-in-Residence Evelyn Mtika.

Isaith forms a vessel with coils.

Isaith is a Port Chester High School student who began his journey with Clay Art Center several years ago during a class at his elementary school. He enjoyed the small pieces he made with that class, and already had a budding interest in fine art, so his teacher recommended that Isaith try taking classes at Clay Art Center. According to Isaith, “I just wanted to have fun. In this area, there aren’t a lot of fun art experiences.” The scholarship that Isaith received allowed him to pursue ceramics more fully, and to work with other students just starting their clay journeys. Now, in addition to participating in Around the World in Clay and the teen wheel class at Clay Art Center, Isaith also assists with the Port Chester Recreation clay class and works as a studio assistant. Isaith doesn’t intend on stopping any time soon either: “This has definitely changed my thinking for a potential career path for me. I’m thinking about a job in ceramics. It’s also changed my thinking about myself: I see myself as more creative, and I’ve definitely made friends here.”