Joy In Moments Big & Small: 2025 Year in Review

With 2026 on the horizon, Executive Director Emily Peck shares some of her favorite moments from the past year.

As the year draws to close, I’m reminded of how special the Clay Art Center community is. Whether you joined us in the studio, visited an exhibition, or attended an event, I hope you found some joy in the moments we created together.

Here are just a few of my favorite things from 2025:

Joining Port Chester High School Around the World in Clay students at Edith G. Read Sanctuary in Rye as they began the process of learning where clay comes from (hint: it isn’t a box)
Receiving a Creative Forces Grant, which enabled us to start running programs for Veterans and their families
Witnessing the creativity of our staff on full display at our first annual staff exhibition
Coming together as a community for tea times, birthday parties, and our celebration of the Lunar New Year
Knowing that almost 20% of our students join our programs for free or at a reduced cost through scholarships and grant funding, empowering us to bring clay and creativity to a wide audience
Building our first fully ADA accessible classroom which will allow us to open our doors to even more people!
Watching our Gallery staff install a new exhibition and being one of the first to see the creativity of artists from Matt Wilt to our Clay Art Center Artists
Seeing the excitement on a student’s face when a glaze combination comes out just right!
Visiting our resident artist studios and watching them take their exhibitions from idea to reality
Celebrating our longtime students at our Hand in Hand benefit
Bringing the Port Chester community together for the Port Chester Arts Festival
Seeing our teachers be as inspired by our students as our students are by our teachers
Knowing that whatever art historical prompt our teachers give in the Around the World in Clay elementary school class, someone will find a way to incorporate Sponge Bob into their interpretation
Receiving a grant from NYSCA which will help us to take the first steps towards our long-term expansion goals
Spending time with all of you, our artists, students, teachers, donors, volunteers, supporters and friends who make the Clay Art Center community a creative and vibrant community. I look forward to spending more time with you in 2026!