VCPG May 2025 Newsletter
Program Meeting on May 18th • Annual Pit Fire at Arroyo Verde Park, Ventura
For Your Calendar:
May 4th ……......................Beatrice Wood Submission deadline
May 18th ……....................Annual Pit Fire at Arroyo Verde Park
May 20th …….....................Board Meeting @ 4:30pm and is combined with June's meeting
May 24th - July 6th............Small Treasures Show at Beatrice Wood
June 3rd ……......................Board Meeting was combined with May's
June 7th & 8th ……............Ojai Show Sale
June 9th ……......................Gallery Committee meeting @ 7pm
July 1st ……......................No Board Meeting
July 21st ……....................Gallery Artists meeting @ 7:00pm
August 5th …….................Board Meeting @ 4:30pm
August 11th ……...............Gallery Committee meeting @ 7pm
August 25th……................Program Meeting @ 7pm
September 2nd ……...........Board Meeting @ 4:30pm
September 22nd……..........Program Meeting @ 7pm
October 7th ……................Board Meeting @ 4:30pm
October 13th ……..............Gallery Committee meeting @ 7pm
October 20th ……..............Gallery Artists meeting @ 7:00pm
October 27th……...............Program Meeting @ 7pm
November 4th……..............Board Meeting @ 4:30pm
November 24th……............Program Meeting @ 7pm
December 2nd ……............Board Meeting @ 4:30pm
December 8th …..…...........Gallery Committee meeting @ 7pm
You will find the link to all Zoom meetings/events on the VCPG.ORG Home Page.
Just click on the meeting/event in the Guild Calendar for the Zoom link.
A Message from Your VCPG Board President • March 2025
Greetings VCPG Members –
Our Spring/Summer events are happening.
All of these events provide an opportunity for Guild members to get together in person. In addition, many of these events provide opportunities for the Guild to support students and emerging ceramists and educate the community-at-large about our ceramics community. By doing so we not only fulfill one of the Guild’s core missions, but we also recruit and build relationships with younger artists whose involvement with our Guild will help sustain us into the future.
Pit Fire: The Pit Fire happens this Sunday. Twenty-seven members have signed up and it promises to be a fun day. Stop by and say “hi” even if you don’t have a pot to fire, folks will be there all day (until 3:30ish) and there is a breakfast and lunch potluck. If you’ve registered you have already received detailed information from our Program Team who have worked hard to make the event a success.
Our annual show at Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts runs May 24th to July 6th with a theme of Small Treasures. The Center is open Friday – Sunday from 11am to 5pm. The opening reception for our show is May 24th at 2pm. This year we are happy to welcome students from Ventura High School who will be showing a selection of work from their miniature ceramic chair series. Who knew miniature chairs offered such creative potential? Ventura High is just one of the schools where the Guild is supporting ceramics instruction by providing outreach and skill-building opportunities to teachers and students alike.
If you are interested in learning more about the School Outreach Program, contact Jennifer Robles at outreach@vcpg.org.
Summer Residency Program - During COVID, the Guild began offering 3-month Summer Residencies to emerging artists and ceramic students. It was such a success we have offered it every summer since.
Guild members did outreach at local colleges and universities and five applications were received – we anticipate awarding three residencies this year. Selected applicants will be matched with a Guild mentor artist to work on specific goals and studio space will be provided either at artists’ studios or Vita Art Center. Residents’ presentations of their work and experiences are a highlight of our Annual Members’ Meeting in October. Past Residents have continued as members of the Guild, been juried, and are now active Guild members. A win-win.
2025 Ojai Pottery Market - The 2025 Ojai Pottery Market will be held at Libbey Park on June 7th from 10am to 6pm and June 8th from 10am to 5pm. Over the next couple of weeks we will be assigning booths, training artists and volunteers, marketing the event, and organizing all the logistics. This all takes a lot of work and there is still time for you to sign-up to help with the event and complete your Team Service.
Click on the Team Service button on the member Home Page and you'll see the link to sign-up
for the available opportunities. In particular, we are looking for Cashiers for select shifts.
Those of you who have cashiered before, please consider signing up again. There will be a Zoom training for Cashiers the first week of June.
The Ojai Pottery Market is just another opportunity to reach out to ceramic students and emerging artists. This year, students from CSU Channel Islands, including one of our former Summer Residents, will be selling their wares at the market and helping our members set-up and break-down. While you’re at the Market, stop by their booth and introduce yourself. Maybe talk a little about pottery!
Reminders & Updates
Gallery: A shout-out to the Marketing and Events Teams and all the artists who participated in the Mother’s Day event at the Venture Pottery Market. As usual, all the hard work paid off, literally, with almost $5,000 in sales over the weekend!
Bowl of Thanks 2025: It’s not too early to start making bowls for the 2025 Bowl of Thanks which is scheduled for November 8th – 9th along with the Guild’s Ventura Pottery Market at the Ventura Harbor Village. Last year we raised over $16,000 to support Food Share. For now just hang on to your pots, more information about the event will be forthcoming.
The Bowl of Thanks/Ventura Pottery Market is the most labor-intensive of all our sales and shows – and therefore will require many of our members to help. We are going to begin our planning early so we will be able to ascertain if we have enough people - power for the event. If not, it may need to be scaled back. This event was very successful last year and we believe it has real potential for growth – benefiting both our members and our non-profit partners – but it takes a village.
Board Meeting Schedule: All Guild members are invited to attend the monthly VCPG Board of Directors Meetings. The monthly Board meetings are normally the first Tuesday of the month at 4:30pm, but we rescheduled the May-June board meeting to Tuesday, May 20th at 4:30 and cancelled the July meeting (as we do most summers).
The link to Board meetings can be found on the Guild Calendar on the VCPG.org Home page. You can contact the Secretary on the Contact Us page if you would like to receive the Agenda Packet in advance of the Board of Directors Meeting.
That’s it for now. I hope to see you at one of these upcoming summer events! In the meantime, keep making stuff!
Stacy Rowe
Guild President
president@vcpg.org
Program Meeting • May 18th • Annual Pitfire Gathering
Please come join us for the day or drop by to say hello. There is still time to register. Click on May 18 on the Guild’s website calendar and you will be taken to additional information and the registration form. We would love to see you there.
Volunteers are needed for Ojai Pottery Market
Only 3 weeks till the big Ojai Pottery Market and we need volunteers to help us make this as big a success as last year (or even bigger!)
Randy Au has again volunteered to assist me as Assistant Lead Cashier so both of us will provide hands-on assistance during the entire sale.
In addition we will have a Zoom training the week prior to go over all the details.
This is a fun event with lots of positive energy and people. We hope to have you join our team!
Gloria Sills
Lead Cashier
June’s Program Meeting is the first Clay Challenge of the year – Stamp It.
The Clay Challenge is a twice a year opportunity for members to explore new ideas. We decide on a theme and challenge members to create something. It is not a competition, but an excuse to make something new and show it at the “reveal” meeting.
These challenges are intended to be fun, spark your imagination, generate conversation and encourage you to investigate new techniques.
If you have already explored the topic, we’d love to see your best work!
stamp /stămp/ -- intransitive verb
1. To bring down (the foot) forcibly.
2. To bring the foot down onto (an object or surface) forcibly.
3. To cause to be dislodged by stomping the feet.
4. To subdue, destroy, or eliminate.
5. To crush or grind with a heavy instrument.
6. To form or cut out by application of a mold, form, or die.
7. To imprint or impress with a mark, design, or seal.
8. To impress forcibly or permanently.
9. To affix an adhesive stamp to (an envelope, for example).
--The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
Use your imagination and create. Be ready to submit pictures of your work by Sunday evening June 15 th to programs@vcpg.com.
Small Treasures • The Beatrice Wood show
May 24 -July 6
Opening reception May 24th
Program Planning:
Pottery Jams… Have an idea for a topic or a skill that you would like to discuss or share with other Guild members? Have a topic you would like to learn more about? Please drop the Program Team an email and we will see what we might do about putting a Jam together around that interest.
Email programs@vcpg.org and one of us will follow-up with you.
We have found a wonderful location to host future workshops at Buena HS. Lots of space, good equipment and an accessible restroom! We are working on the formal details for use. Stay tuned for future offerings.
The Program Team for 2025 includes Meredith Linden, Vera McGuire, Janet Neuwalder, Maureen Schultz and Foz. Feel free to reach out to any of us to explore an idea.
The VCPG Library
Potters,
Where do we get our inspiration from?
Pinterest? Galleries? Books?
Books!
Ventura Potters Guild has books!
See the Mexican tomb objects of the Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima potters, 200 BCE to ACE 500, in LACMA’s Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico.
Take a journey to three mountains on the planet that bring us porcelain in Edmund De Waal’s The White Road. Learn how porcelain links the suffering workers of Jingdezhen China 1,000 years ago, to the survival of the few lucky artisans at Dachau concentration camp.
Geek out with Ruth Duckworth Modernist Sculptor, over her four-hundred-square-foot clay mural adorning four walls of the Geophysical Sciences Building at the U of C. Learn how she convinced the chairman of the department to give her the commission, only later admitting she "had never made a mural before, had hardly looked at any.”
Visit the library! Please email and make an appointment with me to come see the books we have to offer and grab them off the shelf! They are at your disposal. They must be enjoyed.
Nancy Currey
VCPG Librarian
TEAM SERVICE
Just a reminder to Plus Tier members, at the time of membership renewal or joining you made a commitment to offer a service back to the Guild sometime during the calendar year.
There are a variety of opportunities open. The Ojai Pottery Market is coming up and it is an all hands on deck undertaking.
Please take time to visit the Team Service Opportunities posted. You can find this page on the website, under Guild/Team Service.
For questions about Team Service please email teamservice@vcpg.org.
Please consider Volunteering - Team Service Positions
The Marketing Department is looking for three positions to help promote the wonderful work of the VCPG GUILD and THE GALLERY. These positions can be completed at home on your own schedule and there is plenty of advance notice for each project/event.
Researcher: Someone who can help update our current PR mailing list. We can give you direction and guidance. Short term position.
Writer: Someone who can write approximately 6 press releases per year for various gallery and guild events. We have past press releases of events and ChatGPT is also a helpful tool. We need someone to join our team. We will train if needed.
Email Distribution: We are looking for someone who can distribute the finished press releases to our PR list of newspapers & magazines via email distribution.
WE REALLY NEED YOUR HELP!
Rebecca Catteral has been doing these positions for many years and can give you guidance. She has moved on to other responsibilities in the organization.
Thank you
Contact: Ellen Wohlstadter 818-321-8706
Joke of the month
Pottery isn’t just an art; it could also be wheel-y good source of puns!