Louisville Clay, a unique organization in the arts community, is dedicated to promoting clay artist at all levels, from beginners to the studio professional. Work for sale will include a wide range of processes and techniques. Many of the artists are well known in the areas as their work is seen at local craft show and is in local galleries such as Pyro Gallery, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, and Kentucky Artisan Center in Berea, Kentucky. Potters from the group will be demonstrating at the wheel during this two day event.

Membership: Currently we have 95 members. 33 attended the meeting.

Presentation: Sarah Frederick gave us a wonderful talk about her life in clay. It was great to see the early slides of some of our long time potters in Louisville also. As is Sarah’s style, she gave much praise and credit to those who have worked for and with her. She has touched and inspired so many of us and is truly our matriarch in the clay community. At the end of her presentation, Rand Heazlitt presented her with flowers and a lifetime membership in Louisville Clay.

Lava House Donation: As many of you know, the Lava House burned to the ground. 11 artists lost all of their work, while 3 who lived there lost everything. In addition, a dear friend of theirs was killed in the fire. The board proposed a $500 donation and the membership present felt that $1100 would be more appropriate. Everyone agreed. The $1100 will be distributed equally among the artists.

Workshop: Louisville Clay will sponsor a workshop by Seth Payne and Tara Wilson. You may recall that both were well represented at NCECA held here in Louisville. $2500 will be donated to Louisville Clay from money not used for shows during NCECA. (Yes, we were actually under budget on that one!) The workshop will be on Friday, July 18th and Saturday, July 19th at the University of Louisville, with a reception and show to be held at KMAC on Friday evening. There will be no charge for the workshop and it is open to the public. I will send out actual times for each day later. Rand Heazlitt is in charge of the workshop. His email is randheazlt@aol.com

Meetings:

06/12/08 – Glaze Chemistry and Slow Firing – Dolita Dohrman’s house

08/12/08 – Bowl-a-Thon – Payne Street Pottery – Throwing 100 bowls to donate to Empty Bowls

10/07/08 – Brush Making – Laura Ross and Judy Miner’s studio – be collecting deer tails, etc. to make brushes. All other materials will be provided.

12/09/08 – Christmas Party – Amy Elswick’s new studio

Detailed information for each meeting will be sent out closer to the event. In the meantime, be sure to check our website www.louisvilleclay.org under “News” for updated information.

Louisville Clay Sale: 21 artists set up their work at Glassworks for the Gallery Hop on Friday evening (April 4th) and we continued the sale through Saturday. We made $3,641.95 with $744.24 going to Louisville Clay. A sale committee has been formed: Laura Ross, Tonya Johnson, Jim Duffy, Linda Bowman, and Glenn Asauskas. This group will explore any changes that perhaps should be made and put together our sale for next year.

Best of Louisville Clay: This will take place March 1st of 09 and will run for 6 weeks in the Brown Forman Gallery at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. The juror will be Gwen Heffner. She will jury from the actual pieces. A place and time to submit work will be sent to everyone but you should be thinking of what you would like to make now. Each person may submit up to 3 pieces and it is open to the members of Louisville Clay only. Work may be sculptural or functional. Laura Ross is heading up this project. Her email is lauraross@insightbb.com. A committee has been formed for this event: Sebastian Moh, Jim Duffy, Carl deGraaf, Sarah Frederick, with the contact individual for KMAC being Brion Clinkingbeard.

Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft: Please visit the KMAC website and apply for the Woodford Reserve Scholarship Fund. The deadline is Friday, May 2, 2008. http://www.kentuckyarts.org/Scholarships.cfm Please direct your questions regarding the scholarship to Brion Clinkingbeard at brionclinkingbeard@kentuckyarts.org. KMAC offers artists special membership privileges and a discounted rate of $25 to join. Please contact Stephanie Mayfield for more information. stephaniemayfield@kentuckyarts.org

President, Rand Heazlitt; Vice-President, Sebastian Moh; Secretary, Dolita Dohrman; Treasurer, Elmer Lucille Allen

Membership: Currently we have 106 members. Our fiscal year is up in September so it will be time to collect dues again. I will be sending out membership letters and forms via email very soon. You can send in dues by mail or at our next meeting in October.

Payne/Wilson Workshop: Since Seth Payne did not make the workshop, we will request that he schedule again with us within a year in order to use the airline ticket that was purchased. We are looking at sometime in the spring. If this is not possible, we will request a refund from Seth for the cost of the ticket. The total cost of the workshop came to $2,520.59. Everyone should have received a complete breakdown in a prior email. This cost will be covered by money not used for shows during NCECA.

Bowl-a-thon: There were 200 bowls thrown and trimmed at the meeting. This may have been one of our best meetings yet! It was enjoyable for everyone to see the different styles of throwing by all the potters. At any given time, there were 10 people throwing. After the throwing we took a break for refreshments and then started in on the trimming. The bowls will be bisqued by Payne Street Pottery. A few of us will mix glazes and then another group will get together to glaze on September 9th. (Please note that this is a change from the original glazing date of September 2nd.) Lots of pictures were taken and I will try to get a few sent out. I want to thank everyone who attended the meeting for allowing us to make this contribution to Empty Bowls possible.

Meetings:

10/07/08 – Brush Making – Laura Ross and Judy Miner’s studio – Bring hair for the brushes. Many things can be used for brush making: deer tails, squirrel tails, horsehair, straw or straw like materials for hake brushes. There may be things around your house that could be bound into a brush. Any store that sells fly making materials for fishing would also be a good source for hair. There is a store in St. Matthews behind Quest that sells materials for fly-fishing or try the Bass Pro Shop in Clarksville, IN. It was suggested it might be a better alternative to hacking off tails of road-kill with machetes! Of course some of you may be hunters or know hunters, so getting a deer tail may not be too difficult. All other materials will be provided. More details will follow the closer we are to the event.

12/09/08 – Christmas Party – Amy Elswick’s new studio

Detailed information for each meeting will be sent out closer to the event. In the meantime, be sure to check our website www.louisvilleclay.org under “News” for updated information.

Elections: We took nominations for officers at the meeting. At this time nominees are:

President: Laura Ross

Vice-President: Tonya Johnson/Linda Bowman

Secretary: Dolita Dohrman

Treasurer: Elmer Lucille Allen/Amy Elswick (received Amy’s nomination today by email)

We will continue to take nominations by email (dorhman@insightbb.com) till September 7th. At that time, ballots will be sent out electronically and a deadline will be set for the return vote. Votes will be sent via email to Sebastian Moh, our out-going vice-president. He will tally them up. Results will be reported at the October 7th meeting.

Show: ‘Louisville Clay – One of a Kind’: John Guenther provided information for the upcoming show at his Gallery on Pearl. I have included details that were sent out in a prior email. We are going to provide a central drop off point here in Louisville so that we can cut down on the number of trips we all make. Laura Ross has volunteered her van to transport the work to the gallery. I will let you know where the drop off point will be and a deadline soon. At this point, we have 30 participants. Please contact Dolita Dohrman (dohrman@insightbb.com) if you would like to be included. It would be great to have at least 50 participating members. Here is the email that was sent out earlier: John Guenther of Gallery on Pearl has proposed a show of Louisville Clay members' work in his gallery from November 7th to December 31st. It will be titled "Louisville Clay - One of a Kind". He would like 1-2 pieces from each Louisville Clay member. This will not be juried. All artwork must be for sale. There will be a 60/40 split. A reception will be held on November 7th from 7:00 to 9:00, which is during the gallery hop. All artwork must be delivered to the gallery (hand delivered or shipped to arrive) on OCTOBER 29, 30, 31 & NOVEMBER 1 and 4 ONLY !! The deadline for artists to commit to the show and be included on the announcement will be AUGUST 29. This is a great opportunity for us to have a gallery show together which, to date, has never been done. Please contact John Guenther at jmaguenther@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

Show: ‘Best of Louisville Clay’: This will take place April 3rd of 09 (please note date change) and will run for 6 weeks in the Brown Forman Gallery at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. This also happens to be our scheduled date for the Louisville Clay Sale. That committee is discussing plans now. There may be a conflict for our reception so the details will have to be worked out. The juror for Best of Louisville Clay will be Gwen Heffner (this year’s Rude Osolnik Award recipient). She will jury from the actual pieces. A place and time to submit work will be sent to everyone but you should be thinking of what you would like to make now. Each person may submit up to 3 pieces and it is open to the members of Louisville Clay only. Work may be sculptural or functional. Laura Ross is heading up this project. Her email is lauraross@insightbb.com. A committee has been formed for this event: Sebastian Moh, Jim Duffy, Carl deGraaf, Sarah Frederick, with the contact individual for KMAC being Brion Clinkingbeard.

President, Rand Heazlitt; Vice-President, Sebastian Moh; Secretary, Dolita Dohrman; Treasurer, Elmer Lucille Allen

New Board:

Laura Ross, president

Tonya Johnson, vice-president

Dolita Dohrman, secretary

Amy Elswick, treasurer.

Rand presented Sebastian, Dolita, and Elmer Lucille with beautiful gifts and very kind words. He had been president for three years. Laura presented him with one of her teapots and a lifetime membership in Louisville Clay. A lifetime membership was also given to Dolita and Elmer Lucille. Elmer Lucille Allen has been treasurer since the inception of Louisville Clay in 2002. We owe her much gratitude!

Membership: Currently we have 113 members. However, not all those members are current for 2009. On November 1st, I will revise the email list accordingly.

Meetings:

12/09/08 – Christmas Party – Amy Elswick’s new studio

Detailed information for each meeting will be sent out closer to the event. In the meantime, be sure to check our website www.louisvilleclay.org under “News” for updated information.

We will have a meeting of the board specifically to discuss the upcoming year. If you have any suggestions, please let us know.

Four suggestions so far are:

IUS – Brian Harper is the new ceramics professor at IUS. It would be great to have him give an introduction to his work and a slide show.

U of L – Jeff Campana is the new resident in the ceramics department. He does beautiful cone 6 work. An introduction and slide show also would be so interesting.

Wayne Ferguson’s anagama – We have all enjoyed seeing the progress on Wayne’s kiln and it would be fun to have a meeting out there and see it up close and personal.

It was suggested by Susan Jaffe that perhaps we could share one workshop tip at each meeting or have a whole meeting where different people demo what they learned at a workshop.

Show: ‘Louisville Clay – One of a Kind’: John Guenther has requested that each participant forward the following information to Cathy Dusel. Her email address is: duselc@gmail.com

For EACH piece you are entering please send: Name of artist (as you would like it to appear on the label) Title of work Description of piece (clay, glaze, type of firing) Price

Cathy will be making labels for all of the pieces. It is important to do this for each piece as I am sure she would like to just copy what you send her and paste it into her label format. Then all she has to do is deal with the font. Let's make her job a little easier by following these instructions. Please send this info asap.

Also, here is a reminder of the delivery dates: All artwork must be delivered to the gallery (hand delivered or shipped to arrive) on OCTOBER 29, 30, 31 & NOVEMBER 1 and 4 ONLY!! It is not too late to participate, however your name will not appear on the poster as it has already been printed. If it would be more convenient for some of you and also to save on gas, you may drop pieces off at my house - 1811 Edenside Ave., 40204 - and I will make sure they get to the gallery. If I am not here, just leave the pieces on my back porch. They must be packed for transport and I will not take responsibility for breakage.

I have extra postcards for those of you who did not pick them up at the meeting. Again, I will leave a stack on the back porch so that you can come by anytime.

Remember, please pay your dues if you have not already done so if you are in the show. You must be current to participate. You may drop off your work at Dolita Dohrman’s house if that is more convenient for you. Address is 1811 Edenside Ave., 40204. Google directions if you don’t know where that is.

Please contact John Guenther at jmaguenther@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

Show: ‘Best of Louisville Clay’: This will take place April 3rd of 09 (please note date change) and will run for 6 weeks in the Brown Forman Gallery at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. This also happens to be our scheduled date for the Louisville Clay Sale. Our opening reception will be on Thursday, April 2nd in order to accommodate all the artists. This way it won’t interfere with our sale. The juror for Best of Louisville Clay will be Gwen Heffner (this year’s Rude Osolnik Award recipient). She will jury from the actual pieces. A place and time to submit work will be sent to everyone but you should be thinking of what you would like to make now. Each person may submit up to 3 pieces and it is open to the members of Louisville Clay only. Work may be sculptural or functional. Laura Ross is heading up this project. Her email is lauraross@insightbb.com. A committee has been formed for this event: Sebastian Moh, Jim Duffy, Carl deGraaf, Sarah Frederick, with the contact individual for KMAC being Brion Clinkingbeard.

Louisville Clay Sale: The committee for the Louisville Clay sale is made up as follows: Linda Bowman, Laura Ross, Tonya Johnson, Jim Duffy, and Glenn Asauskas. Linda suggested that the two committees meet together since a number of members are on both. She emphasized that this meeting take place soon.

Sebastian Moh: Sebastian will have his solo show at Bellarmine with the opening on Friday, October 10th, 5-7 pm in the McGrath Art Gallery. The show will run from October 10 through November 9.

Nancy K. Smith: Nancy, one of our new members, will have her first exhibition on November 1st at Louisville Stoneware.

Brush Making: Laura gave a demo on how to construct a brush and then cut everyone loose to make his or her own. She provided the bamboo, glue, and string to bind the hair, while the members provided many different kinds of hair/fur with which to make the brushes. There were many different animals’ hair/fur represented but the most unique was a coyote skin (at least I think that was what it was). The brushes turned out beautiful and everyone seemed pleased with what they were taking home. It is always a pleasure to go out to Laura and Judy’s studio.

President, Laura Ross; Vice-President, Tonya Johnson; Secretary, Dolita Dohrman; Treasurer, Amy Elswick

All artwork must be delivered to the gallery (hand delivered or shipped to arrive) on OCTOBER 29, 30, 31 & NOVEMBER 1 and 4 ONLY !! The deadline for artists to commit to the show and be included on the announcement will be AUGUST 29.

This is a great opportunity for us to have a gallery show together which, to date, has never been done. Contact dohrman@insghtbb.com if you are going to participate. Please contact John Guenther at jmaguenther@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

Membership: Currently we have 93 members.

We would like to thank Amy for her wonderful hospitality. It was a treat for all of us to see the renovations in progress. It is amazing what Amy and her husband have accomplished.

Meetings:

Detailed information for each meeting will be sent out closer to the event. In the meantime, be sure to check our website www.louisvilleclay.org under “News” for updated information.

The schedule for 2009 will be:

Thursday, February 12th – Presentation and Demo by Jeff Campana at U of L

Tuesday, April 7th – Group throwing for woodfiring will be held at Payne Street Pottery. In May members who are interested will help fire the work in Wayne’s new anagama kiln.

Wednesday, June 10th – Louisville Stoneware - tentative

Tuesday, August 11th – Open

Wednesday, October 7th – Pit firing demo at Martha Puckett’s

Tuesday, December 8th – Christmas Party – place to be determined.

Committee Heads:

Judy Miner (miner@insightbb.com) – Workshop Scheduling

Glenn Asauskas (gasauskas@bellsouth.net) – Marketing

Linda Bowman (lindab2623@bellsouth.net) – Louisville Clay Sale

Tonya Johnson (tjo62@aol.com) – Member Benefits

Laura Ross (lauraross@insightbb.com) – Best of Louisville Clay

Suggestion slips were handed out at the Christmas party asking for preferences of artists for workshops and ideas for meetings. However, none of the slips were collected. Watch for an email on this subject.

Workshops: Judy has been able to schedule Lana Wilson (http://www.lanawilson.com/old/index.html) for May 2010. Seth Payne will be coming this year but we do not have a specific date yet. U of L will feature Beth Cavener Stichter (http://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/) at 21C sometime in February. When I get the specifics, I will send them out right away.

Best of Louisville Clay at KMAC: Reception April 2nd, Opening April 3rd. By now, everyone should have a prospectus detailing the requirements and specific dates for this show. We need to know ahead who will participate and how many pieces (up to 3) each person is submitting so that we can let the photographer know. An email will follow with this request. Submissions may be dropped off at Dolita Dohrman’s anytime between now and Feb. 2nd. Address: 1811 Edenside Ave. If I am not home, leave them on the back porch.

Louisville Clay Sale: April 3 & 4. It has been determined that the entry fee for this sale will increase to $75. However, there will be no percentage taken from sales. Linda will call a meeting of all participants once we have heard from everyone. So far we have 20 responses.

One of a Kind: Please pick up your work by WED. JANUARY 7TH. Call to see if your work has sold, it could save you a trip. 812-542-0780

Regular hours between now and Jan 7th are:

Wed. Dec. 31st 11:00-3:00

Thurs. CLOSED NEW YEARS DAY

Fri. Jan.2 11:00-5:00

Sat Jan. 3 10:00- 5:00

SUNDAY AND MONDAY CLOSED

Tues. Jan.6 11:00- 5:00

Wed. Jan. 7 11:00- 5:00

President, Laura Ross; Vice-President, Tonya Johnson; Secretary, Dolita Dohrman; Treasurer, Amy Elswick

Upcoming:

Tuesday, April 7th – Group throwing for woodfiring will be held at Payne Street Pottery. In May members who are interested will help fire the work in Wayne’s new anagama kiln.

Wednesday, June 10th – Louisville Stoneware (?)

Tuesday, August 11th – Open

Wednesday, October 7th – Pit firing demo at Martha Puckett’s

Tuesday, December 8th – Christmas Party – place to be determined.

Committee Heads:

Judy Miner (miner@insightbb.com) – Workshop Scheduling

Glenn Asauskas (gasauskas@bellsouth.net) – Marketing

Linda Bowman (lindab2623@bellsouth.net) – Louisville Clay Sale

Tonya Johnson (tjo62@aol.com) – Member Benefits

Laura Ross (lauraross@insightbb.com) – Best of Louisville Clay

Demo by Jeff Campana: Jeff did a demo on putting together a tea bowl. He throws the piece without a bottom and then decides how he wants to divide it. The small tea bowl was to be divided into four sections. He divided it in half, smoothed the edges, slipped it and put it back together. The slip he uses is just his clay body with darvon added. He swears by it. He just collects chunks of his clay as he is throwing, adds a little water and darvon and mixes it to pudding thickness. Immediately after joining a piece, if he tries to pull it apart, it breaks the main body and not the join. The piece is put back together, then divided again. This time he adds the disk in the bottom for which he has created a notch with a customized tool he uses. He throws small disks off the hump that become the bottom of his pieces. The disk must rotate freely in the notch or the whole piece will crack. He came to this conclusion after much trial and error. He uses his own clay blend and says it is very strong in the leather hard stage. It has been a long road to get to this point. His loss rate used to be over 50%. Most of us would have given up long ago.

Workshops: Louisville Clay, University of Louisville, and 21C will sponsor a workshop featuring Beth Cavener Stichter (http://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/) on Feb. 27 and 28. Details have been sent out to the membership.

Best of Louisville Clay at KMAC: Jurying took place on Feb. 8 & 9. We had over 80 pieces juried in for the show. Photos have been taken and will be used for the website. The show will run from February 28 to March 21. Reception will take place at KMAC on Mar. 6th from 5-9. A separate announcement has been sent out to everyone. Wayne Feruguson has donated $200 for a Best of Show in Sculpture and an anonymous donor has also donated $200 for a Best of Show in Functional work. There will also be a People’s Choice Award and a Member’s Choice Award

Clay Extravaganza: On March 14th from 11 am to 4:30 pm Louisville Clay members will demonstrate their talents and knowledge through a day of demonstrations, talks, and videos. This will be an opportunity for the public and our membership to meet the artists and learn about the process of working with clay. Louisville Stoneware has donated 3 large platters. Dick McLaughlin has volunteered to record this event.

Wayne Ferguson has made the suggestion that we need to create an archive of Louisville Clay activities. This suggestion was well received and Dick has agreed to work on this process with Wayne. Louisville Clay Sale: The sale will no longer be at Glassworks. They have a new policy for the use of the room we used last year. There has been some discussion of holding the sale at the beginning of June in the parking lot of Deer Park Baptist Church on Bardstown Road. It is across from a very successful Farmers’ Market. If anyone has other suggestions or ideas on the sale, please contact Linda Bowman at lindab2623@bellsouth.net

Kentucky Craft Market: Is open to the public on Feb. 21 & 22. March Events:

FEBRUARY 28TH “BEST OF LOUISVILLE CLAY “ OPENS

MARCH 6TH ARTIST RECEPTION 5-9 PM Music, food, and bar

MARCH 14TH “CLAY EXTRAVAGANZA” at KMAC

MARCH 27TH BETH CAVENER STICHTER WORKSHOP U OF L – 10 – 4 PM

MARCH 27TH BETH CAVENER STICHTER LECTURE AT 21C MUSEUM 6PM Reception Following

MARCH 28TH BETH CAVENER STICHTER WORKSHOP 10AM – 5 PM

President, Laura Ross; Vice-President, Tonya Johnson; Secretary, Dolita Dohrman; Treasurer, Amy Elswick

First Annual Juried Exhibition of Works by Members of the Regional Organization - Louisville Clay

Juror: Gwen Heffner

Calendar:

FEBRUARY 2ND: Delivery of actual works to: Dolita Dohrman 1811 Edenside Ave. Louisville, KY 40204 502-749-1513 or 502-593-0905

FEBRUARY 3-9: Works juried/photographed Jury notification by email

FEBRUARY 28: SHOW BEGINS Kentucky Museum of Art & Craft Brown Forman Gallery

MARCH 6: RECEPTION FIRST FRIDAY TROLLEY HOP 5-9

MARCH 21 Pick-up of works at conclusion of show at KMAC