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With 2026 well underway, Standard Clay is looking toward 2026 and the upcoming High School Student Exhibition at ClayPlace@Standard in March.  This year’s Juror is Britney Smith, the Program Director for Art and Design at Pittsburgh’s Carlow University.  Smith is a ceramic artist and teacher whose body of work explores concepts of lineage and care, themes that draw from and enrich her work as an educator.  Smith will review the ceramic pieces of local high school students that will be presented at the show and will designate top honors for both individual students and school programs.

With 2026 well underway, Standard Clay is looking toward 2026 and the upcoming High School Student Exhibition at ClayPlace@Standard in March.  This year’s Juror is Britney Smith, the Program Director for Art and Design at Pittsburgh’s Carlow University.  Smith is a ceramic artist and teacher whose body of work explores concepts of lineage and care, themes that draw from and enrich her work as an educator.  Smith will review the ceramic pieces of local high school students that will be presented at the show and will designate top honors for both individual students and school programs.

With 2026 well underway, Standard Clay is looking toward 2026 and the upcoming High School Student Exhibition at ClayPlace@Standard in March.  This year’s Juror is Britney Smith, the Program Director for Art and Design at Pittsburgh’s Carlow University.  Smith is a ceramic artist and teacher whose body of work explores concepts of lineage and care, themes that draw from and enrich her work as an educator.  Smith will review the ceramic pieces of local high school students that will be presented at the show and will designate top honors for both individual students and school programs.

When Andrew Carnegie opened his first public library in the United States 1889 in Braddock, Pennsylvania, he envisioned a place of refuge and relaxation for the workers at the Edgar Thomson Steel Works.  A free library would expand minds; a bath house would improve personal hygiene; a swimming pool and gymnasium would promote physical fitness; a music hall would elevate the spirit.  One hundred and thirty-six years later, through numerous challenges and changes, this institution is still adapting to the needs of the Braddock community and serving the same ideals.

Today, after an extensive four-year renovation project that scattered the organization’s services and programs to a variety of satellite locations, the facility has re-opened and stands ready to engage Braddock citizens in enriching and supportive activities that address the same human needs that Carnegie identified. 

The metro DC area will be alive with potters the weekend of November 13 through 16.  Pottery on the Hill is an annual event sponsored by DC’s local clay community.

For the past two years, Austin Coudriet’s calendar has been marked with engagements, each month sending him to a different country or US state to present his furniture-making workshops.  Coudriet is not a woodworker – he is a ceramic artist – and his large ceramic pieces include chairs, tables, lamps, and sculptural pieces.  This young builder who was named the 2024 Emerging Artist by Ceramics Monthly magazine and the received the 2025 Emerging Artist Award by NCECA has caught the attention of the ceramics world and has ignited interest in big clay pieces.  While Coudriet’s pieces stand out, it is the community behind the work that motivates this artist not only to build big, but to think, plan, and dream big.

The scene at Peter Lane’s Scholes Street studio in Brooklyn looks like a mother’s nightmare – a group of boys on their hands and knees, pants and sleeves stained brown, a massive pile of mud.  But these aren’t boys and this is not mud.  They are Lane’s team of ceramicists and this is clay.  The group is working on a huge architectural installation for a client.  This New York based ceramic artist works on an unprecedented scale, creating architectural features for private and commercial spaces, along with furniture and decorative work.  His fidelity to the nature of clay guides the process and the finished work, as he manipulates the material through a journey that magnifies its most essential elements in the final product.

Beth Morean, well-known artist and philanthropist, has taken the next step in her 40-year quest to solidify St. Petersburg as a top destination for ceramic artists and continues to build on the ever-evolving expansion of the city as a worldwide arts destination in all mediums. Originally relocating to the area for family business reasons, Beth quickly fell in love with the clay community in St. Petersburg and decided it was going to be her legacy to create something special for the local art community.

A springtime tradition at Standard Clay is the annual High School Students Exhibition at the ClayPlace@Standard gallery.  Area art students and their teachers look forward to selecting their best pieces, showing them to a wider audience, and facing the scrutiny of a professional juror.  This year’s juror, Jerry Wagner, is a paradoxical mix of artist and technician who is not only an accomplished potter but a veritable fire wizard.  Wagner’s years of experience in the industrial kiln industry lends a unique perspective to his eye for the seemingly mysterious process of combining earth, chemicals, and heat.