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This summer the London Clay Art Centre was bustling with activity, including seven classes filled to capacity, summer clay camps for kids, studio members hard at work, and a raku workshop led by internationally known artists Robert and Gail Piepenburg that attracted potters from all over Southwestern Ontario. Feeling this creative buzz, it is amazing to realize that we opened our centre only ten months ago, and that renovations only began just over a year ago – May 2009!
Since March 2008, when we purchased 664 Dundas Street, the dream of the London Potters Guild to create a home of its own has been unfolding with tremendous results!
To date we have fully renovated the first floor of our facility at 664 Dundas Street in the heart of Old East Village to become the London Clay Art Centre. Since the LCAC opened, it has been busy on many fronts. To date we have run 28 classes for 220 students, a year of monthly membership meetings, several workshops, both internal and from visiting artists, and we opened our store at the south end of the building.
The last weekend of November 2009 we hosted the annual LPG Christmas Sale for the first time in our new home. It proved to be our most successful sale, both in terms of attendance and sales, in the almost 30-year history of the guild! Upward of 35 clay artists displayed and sold their wares to an estimated 1500 customers who visited the London Clay Art Centre between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.
Over March break 2010, we had 10 children enrolled in Clay Camp and we are running three summer clay camps for kids in July and August. We are also offering a program called Clay Power - a clay ambassador program for seniors, which involves outreach to four organizations in the community to provide an enjoyable introduction to pottery for seniors. It is part of the New Horizons for Seniors Program funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and involves eight participants.
We have been running birthday parties and corporate team building days, as well as a series of clay experiences for children staying at Merrymount Children’s Centre. The LPG executive is continually working to assess and initiate new programming where opportunities present themselves in the community.
In fact, a group of five intrepid executive members plus the administrative assistant for LCAC trekked to Philadelphia for a few days in mid-June. They toured The Clay Studio, a large state-of-the-art facility successfully operating for the past 35 years, which has succeeded in implementing programs now being developed here in London. The group gathered information and helpful materials to aid the LPG in its future program delivery and long-term planning for our facility. The ongoing dedication of this group is propelling the London Clay Art Centre to greater success!
Members are using the studio at all hours of the day and the centre enjoys substantial daily walk-in traffic from people attracted to the pottery shop or who are interested in finding out about classes and membership. All in all, the centre is living up to the projections outlined in our original business plan created in December 2007.
We are now poised to begin the next phase of our plan. We will be constructing an addition on the northeast corner of the building that houses a lift as well as a staircase to the second floor. This phase of the project will fulfill our vision of making the London Clay Art Centre fully accessible to all. It is our desire to complete the overall renovations to 664 Dundas Street as soon as possible. Our fundraising efforts continue with a view to refurbishing the façade to its former 1910 glory. Plans to renovate the second floor will also proceed once we have sufficient funds in hand.
We welcome all donations, large and small!
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Raku excitement at the Robert and Gail Piepenburg workshop.
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