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To Capacity and Beyond
Growing Appreciation Creates Growing Demand
Clay - A Versatile Medium with Serious Benefits
London is the place. The time is NOW.
Location, Location, Location
Regional Excellence
100% Dedication
Additional Information
The London Potters Guild has remained true to its original mandate, having shared the joy of clay with scores of area residents over the past twenty-five years. Our continued success has also been fueled by a growing appreciation for pottery as both a functional craft and an art form. In the words of Past President Teresa Ainsworth "Each year, we get bigger and better." The London Potters Guild has recently developed a plan to carry us into the future:
We seek to establish London as a centre for the ceramic arts in southwestern Ontario by creating a self-sustaining, dedicated Clay Art Facility to meet the long term needs of both the London Potters Guild and the community we serve.
To Capacity and Beyond
The London Potters Guild has many reasons to continue to be proud of its current home in the East Lion’s Artisans Centre. Brought about by successful partnering with other artisan groups and the City of London, the Centre first opened its doors in 1991.
The Guild worked with community partners to locate an unused recreation building, to raise funds and plan renovation details for the East Lions Centre, which is owned and maintained by the City of London.
This facility boasts a permanent pottery studio complete with 11 electric pottery wheels, a kiln room with 2 electric kilns, glaze materials, a slab roller, various hand and power tools and, of course, space in which to create. The studio – which is relatively small in size – is used for classes, workshops and as a working studio space by members.
Growing Appreciation Creates Growing Demand
- Approximately 100 students participate in our courses annually.
- 60 guild members take advantage of our studio-management training sessions each year.
- 60 guild members share our working studio space.
- The majority of our classes run at full capacity; many have waiting lists.
- Current programming is limited - mostly focused on pottery (not sculpture) at the beginner level due to overwhelming demand. Programming at the intermediate and advanced levels is much needed.
- We have only recently begun to offer summer classes, due to the installation of air conditioning in the East Lions Centre. Summer class sizes and activities, however, are severely limited due to the recurring use of part of our facility by the City of London for administration of its public swimming program each year.
- The Guild has been approached in recent years by a variety of school, scouting and community youth groups seeking programming for school-aged children. Due to concerns over space, storage and safety (created by overcrowding and overuse of our current facility) we have had to turn many of these groups away. This is especially unfortunate given cuts to public school funding for the arts, which have left many Canadians hungry for youth-appropriate arts education.
- Similarly, we have had to turn down a growing number of requests for pottery classes for local senior’s groups, church and community groups.
- We are also having increasing difficulty accommodating the needs of our own members. From a professional standpoint, the guild is no longer able to provide adequate studio space, equipment or rental space to support the needs of emerging clay artists.
- Six years ago, we attempted to respond to these concerns by applying for (and receiving) funding from the London Arts Council to assist us with the hiring a studio coordinator on a contract basis. The coordinator was able to redesign our studio space, contract for the rebuilding of storage areas, initiate a studio management training program and increase the overall efficiency of our studio. These challenges, however, continue to become more pressing and need to be addressed on an on-going basis.
Our current studio facilities and meeting space will clearly be inadequate to sustain our organization’s continued growth or meet the considerable and growing needs of the community we serve.
Clay - A Versatile Medium with Serious Benefits
Down-to-Earth and Stress Relieving
Guild members often comment on the relaxing and pleasing tactile qualities of working with clay, taking comfort in clay’s ability to balance and offset societal trends towards high technology and mass production. Guild member Chris Snedden, for example, told the London Free Press (June 8, 1998): “It seems that the more technological a society becomes, the more people are attracted to rootsy things such as handmade items.” He went on to say that “pottery is so rootsy that civilization could not have happened without it because [pottery] was needed to store food.”
Elenore Lubas, art therapist and licensed counsellor, has this to say: "The tactile nature of art media – [and] clay is a beautiful example of this - is nurturing and comforting. Without being aware of the process, someone who is isolated due to depression is suddenly engaged with something outside of himself - and it feels good."
Julie Bell, writing about the London Potters Guild for The Londoner (Nov 18, 2004) suggests: “When the stress of every day life gets you down, you may want to consider throwing a pot.”
A Multitude of Benefits
Ample evidence suggests that arts activity in general can fuel economic development and urban renewal, create employment opportunities, improve academic performance, increase self esteem, build cognitive skills, provide constructive activities for at-risk youth, improve coping skills, promote healing and build bridges across cultures.
Arts activities – and clay art in particular – have also been shown to improve motor skills and muscle tone, benefiting the elderly, children with autism, victims of sexual abuse, individuals struggling with eating disorders, bereaved children, refugees, cancer patients and many others.
Clay’s Healing Properties
As a tactile medium, clay is highly accessible and can be taught to people with vision or language barriers. A popular course at the University of Michigan, for example, is geared toward the visually impaired. Course instructor Sadashi Inuzuka calls clay a “versatile teaching tool,” describing it as “an extremely tactile material.” He goes on to say “It just feels good when you touch it, whatever you do.
Author David Henley, who has written an entire book on the use of clay in art therapy, calls clay a “universally recognized medium of creative expression” with “great potential for therapeutic application.” Youth Benefits
Studies by well-known authorities such as Jane M. Healy suggest that North American society is becoming increasingly non-tactile. This is especially problematic for children, who are bombarded with visual, non-tactile stimulation through television, computers and movie screens. Physical and tactile activity in childhood helps build motor control centres in the lower brain areas, ensuring proper large and small muscle coordination. It also helps develop a mature sensory-motor system which is necessary for the accurate perception and processing of information in the brain.
The Ontario Arts Council says that arts education helps children “become more competent in a technological world” and encourages partnerships between schools and the arts community.
Arts advocates across North America promote the importance of engaging young people in artistic activity. ArtSmarts, a Canadian advocacy group, says art is “critical to [children’s] evolution as creative thinkers,” adding “It is they who will soon be leading Canada’s growth in terms of cultural, social and economic development.” Ironically, many Canadian school boards have eliminated some or all of their art programs, leaving children with few avenues for expressing their creativity.
The London Potters Guild has a strong interest in providing pottery classes for young people and has had considerable success working with area youth in the past. It is unfortunate that we are limited in our ability to provide an appropriate learning environment for school-aged children at a time when the need for such instruction is well documented and increasingly urgent.
Creating Potential
The London Potters Guild would like to explore possibilities for expanding its class offerings to include programming for additional target populations (at-risk youth, seniors, physically or mentally challenged, etc.) as practical and/or appropriate, once we have a facility which can adequately support the increased need for storage, space, training and safety such additional programming would create.
There are many who would benefit from access to a therapeutic, welcoming clay art experience. The London Potters Guild can not meet this challenge without a new facility.
London is the place. The time is NOW.
Supports for Artists – Everyone Benefits
The City of London formally recognized the local importance of the arts when it issued its Creative City Task Force Report in April of 2005. This report calls for London to “broaden public access to the excellence and diversity of the local arts sector, and aggressively promote policies to attract and retain the creative class." The Report goes on to say that artists “need the support of each other and places they can meet to exchange ideas.” This is exactly what a clay arts centre would do for professional as well as recreational clay artists in the area.
The quality-of-life and economic benefits of the arts in general are well documented. In particular, Richard Florida, in his influential work Cities and the Creative Class, highlights the importance of active artistic communities in attracting high quality personnel to a city.
A recent report by Ryerson University’s Centre for the Study of Commercial Activity further demonstrates that arts and cultural facilities bring economic development and revitalization to neighbourhoods, in turn helping to attract additional businesses and consumers, reversing migration to malls and creating a more vital ‘lived in’ area that doesn’t shut down at the end of the work day.
The Creative Cities organization (an on-line group of municipal employees across Canada working in arts, culture and heritage planning) suggests “new construction is not the only way the arts can bring activity into an area”. The organization promotes arts activities as a means for uncovering “productive new uses for neighbourhood facilities and under-utilized or abandoned spaces.
Evidence, then, clearly suggests that a dedicated Clay Arts Centre would likely help to revitalize an abandoned building in the London area, along with the area which surrounds it while bringing an economic boost to the area in general.
The Task Force report also says that artists in the area “must feel welcome and appreciated in the community and have gallery space to display their work.”
The London Potters Guild has a strong record for fostering talent in the clay arts. We have also endeavoured to teach our members important business and studio management skills to help foster successful arts careers. Many of our members, however, still struggle to make a living pursuing their craft in the London area. The London Potters Guild can cite a number of outstanding professional potters who moved to London and have been unable to support themselves in the field.
A dedicated Clay Art Centre will provide studio space and a visible forum for emerging artists who need a launching pad for their career. This, in turn, will help young artists remain in the area to pursue their careers, rather than leaving the city or turning to other endeavours.
A dedicated Clay Art Centre will also create a number of important employment opportunities for Guild members and recent arts program graduates from the area. Location, Location, Location
London’s excellent geographic location, the accomplishments of the London Potters Guild and complementary programming and services in the area combine to make it clear that there is significant potential for establishing London as a premiere destination for Ceramic Art in southwestern Ontario.
This goal is echoed in the Creative City Task Force report, which calls for London “to assume its position as the ‘Regional Capital’ of southwestern Ontario.”
The London Potters Guild has traditionally served an area well beyond the boundaries of the City of London. London’s location along the Highway 401/402 corridor has made it convenient for individuals from Sarnia to Hamilton and many points in-between to utilize our services and attend our workshops. Note the following map, which shows the distribution of current guild members and attendees for our 2005 workshop series:
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Regional Excellence
London is already well on its way to becoming a natural focal point for clay art in southwestern Ontario. Thanks to the London Potters Guild, the City of London was given the distinct honour of being asked to serve as host city for a province-wide conference on clay and glass art. London proudly welcomed the 1987 Fusion (Ontario’s Clay and Glass Association) conference, which brought clay and glass enthusiasts from all over Ontario to the London area for several days. We have been asked to once again serve as host city for an upcoming Fusion conference, an honour we will not be in a position to accept until we are in our new, expanded facility.
There are a number of other organizations in the area that offer complementary goods and services. These organizations further enhance London’s capacity to serve as a regional focal point for clay art. They include:
- Jonathon Bancroft Snell Gallery - a fine art gallery that specializes in ceramic art with national and international appeal. The gallery is home to the largest collection of contemporary Canadian ceramics in all of Canada.
- Hutton House - well known for its line of high-quality stoneware pottery created by persons with disabilities.
- Fanshawe College – this learning institution offers a well-known and respected applied arts program.
- University of Western Ontario – the university is home to a top-of-the-line gas kiln as part of its Fine Arts program.
- Bealart Program - southwestern Ontario's “Premium Secondary School Art Program,” featuring ten fully equipped art studios and clay art instruction and facilities.
100% Dedication
Shared Vision
A 2003 survey of our general membership asked the important question: “Do you support the London Potters Guild executive in pursuing a re-location plan?” Survey responses indicated overwhelming positive support. Since then, our members (who have a long-standing tradition of volunteer dedication and involvement) continue to support our “Seize the Clay” Campaign.
Grass Roots Support
As a Guild, we understand the importance of grass roots involvement and have made a strong, organization-wide effort to raise funds for a new facility. These activities showcase the talent, drive, energy and commitment of our members. Some of our fund raising milestones have included:
- $3,000 raised in direct donations from Guild members at a single monthly guild meeting, upon announcement of the Seize the Clay Campaign.
- $2,312 raised through a variety of fun internal fundraisers (like 50/50 draws, a “Toonie Toss” and auctions) at monthly meetings.
- Members have worked together to create and sell pottery items specifically designed to support the Seize the Clay Campaign at our annual sales, as well as donating a percentage of their own sale proceeds.
- $1,374 was raised through the sale of cheese and preserves.
- “Seconds Sales” of pottery items have raised thousands of dollars for our cause
- Our first “Ultimate Blue Plate Dinner” raised $13,290, the second raised $12,380.
- Secured a Trillium Grant for $65,000 to support the hiring of a Campaign Director.
Despite phenomenal efforts on the part of guild members, significant additional support is needed.
Additional information
If you would like more information, please contact:
Marilyn Barbe
Chair, Seize the Clay Committee
Phone: 519-293-3339
Help us build our future!
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