Featured Articles

PennOhio Clay Guild: Nurturing Artists

October 01, 2024

Something has been brewing in New Castle, Pennsylvania among the area’s clay artists for a few years. At the PennOhio Clay Guild, people are talking, equipment is changing hands, ideas are percolating. To understand this association of potters, you must try to wrap your head around two wandering pioneers named Septimus and Jen Bean. The couple made a home in this small Northwestern Pennsylvania city in 2018, stopping along a circuitous route that they have travelled together since their college days at Kent State University in Ohio. Both consider themselves educators, not only in the traditional sense but through a far-reaching conceptual ethos that defines their lives. At first glance, one might think the PennOhio Clay Guild is like many collective clay studios run by artists searching for a way to balance a creative life with paying the bills, but a conversation with Septimus and Jen will take you on your own journey that quickly lets you know that this is much more than a studio.

High School Exhibition Jurors Launch Young Artists into a Future of Possibility

July 03, 2024

Visitors at Standard Clay in Pittsburgh can stop into the Clay Place at Standard gallery this July to view an unprecedented exhibit of works by sixteen prominent potters. The Juror Collective honors the past jurors of Standard Clay’s Annual High School Student Exhibition. While this group of pieces is a feast for the eyes and minds of the viewers, it is what these works represent that is the real message of the show. Standing as a bridge between the past and future, these artists spark and nourish the creative seed within young people, validating the power of the tactile arts to nourish and foster a concrete exploration and understanding of the world.

Don Seymour: A Life Landscape

June 09, 2024

It is the rare person who has a clear vision in youth who can look back in age and see its fruition. Don Seymour, owner of Clayscapes Pottery, Inc. in Syracuse, New York is one such person. Through years of making pottery in a home basement studio, selling at festivals, developing wholesale markets, working full time, and raising a family, Seymour held tight to his dream of owning his own pottery business. In October of 2003, he put the name Clayscapes on his clay distributorship and with his wife Kim began to develop the business into the studio, store, and gallery that he envisioned. Today, in the superlative fulfillment of a life’s work, he is taking a step backwards to transition control of his business to his enthusiastic three adult children.