Spotlight: Play and Clay Cor Garcia-Held and Emiliano Garcia
Appears in the April 2024 issue of Ceramics Monthly.
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Ceramics Monthly: Can you provide insight into Gasworks NYC’s commitment to fostering play, creativity, and community within its communal clay studio, and how this philosophy shapes the overall experience for its members?
Cor Garcia-Held and Emiliano Garcia: Play, creativity, and community are the pillars of the studio. Everything we know about neuroscience from our previous careers (Cor was an art therapist and Emiliano was a musician) says we learn and grow through relationships and play. So having fun and fostering connections are some of the best ways we know to nurture our studio community. From “The Sponge of Unconditional Love” (Gasworks NYC’s playfully named mascot) to humorous signage around the studio, to wacky payroll reminders, to our orientations and classes, there is a light-hearted sense of play, support, and community in everything we do. We want people to know we’re on this clay journey together.
We nurture our community through collective activities: eating meals together, bowling, karaoke, staff retreats, jumping in swimming holes, and doing upstate wood-firings together. We work collaboratively with the community and staff, always seeking input and asking for feedback. We make pots alongside our community, celebrating each other’s successes and mourning our losses together.
When one of our former staff members went to grad school, they chose to commemorate their years at the studio with an ankle tattoo of “The Dustpan of Justice” (another tool named to encourage taking care of each other and the space). We love that this intersection of silliness and community-mindedness is what they take away from their time with us.
CM: Could you elaborate on the objectives of Public Ceramics?
CGH and EG: Our small, volunteer-run non-profit, Public Ceramics, offers fellowships, free public programs, mentorship, and residencies (coming soon) to folks historically underrepresented in North American studios; especially Black, Latine, and Indigenous folks. Indigenous communities in every part of the world have developed and refined the techniques used in modern studios for over a millennia, and it is vital to us that our ceramics community reflects that heritage.
We fundraise every winter, then we open up applications in the spring, and offer fellowships in the summer. Though each year’s cohort works in studios across the city, we host events and open-studio hours throughout the program so that fellows can build community with one another.
We are currently working with ClaySpace and Michelle Wen’s studio along with Gasworks NYC for the summer of 2024. We look forward to being able to work with more studios and offer more fellowships. To do so, we will need to increase our ability to fundraise. Right now, we see more than 200 applications each year for only 20–24 spots, so the need is there. We endeavor to meet that need and keep growing our community.
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