The Arts Go First

Looks like I'm losing my studio space. The Worcester Craft Center, where I have rented space for the past two years, has announced it is closing its doors for a "strategic pause" [pdf file]. To me, strategic pause sounds very ominous. The Board is basically giving up and putting out an APB for funding. I'm not sure whether to use the past tense or the present tense in writing this post. The Center took the studio renters money for January so we are allowed to continue to use our spaces until the end of the month; but there are no longer any employees at the Center. No classes, no gift shop, no one to pay for supplies or clay, no one to fire the kilns, no one to maintain the equipment.

Everyone but the Executive Director was fired yesterday; a few people will stay on for a day or two, but that's it. They even closed the gift shop so apparently bringing in modest amounts of money is not considered important. (The gift shop was profitable.) The glass studio which is in a separate building is now offering all kinds of rentals, of space and different kinds of equipment.

The Craft Center has been in financial straits for years and the economic crisis has made things worse. Here's the financial situation according to the Telegram:

The decision, reached at a trustees meeting Monday night, came after pressure from creditors and a significant decline in tuition, donations and other revenue added up to a shortfall of about $700,000, said David J. Firstenberg, president of the board of trustees. To reopen, the center needs about $1.2 million, to retire debt and finance a restart, he said, while acknowledging that that is a steep challenge in the current economic climate.

Last summer, the Center for Crafts had just begun to recover from several years of serious financial struggles. The board had worked hard to stabilize the venerable institution, Ms. Walzer had been hired as a permanent director after a period when the position had been a revolving-door, and a $1.2 million capital campaign was showing promise. The board had hoped to use some of the money to rebuild the staff after several rounds of budget cuts in recent years had gutted it. There was no marketing director or accountant on staff, for example, and several craft areas languished without department heads.

Then, in October, the recession deepened and the money flow ebbed. Some capital campaign pledges didn’t come through, and investment portfolios deflated. Tuition revenue declined as prospective students became more conservative with spending.

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The craft center is hampered in borrowing its way out of the crisis by the debt it has already incurred. Among major creditors are vendors such as utilities and printers, who are owed about $140,000. “A significant portion of that is over 90 days and so we’ve been stringing vendors along and that gets dicey after a while,” Mr. Firstenberg said.

There also is a substantial institutional debt. The Non-Profit Funding Foundation loaned the craft center $330,000 in 2004, on which $290,000 is still owed. “We’ve been making interest-only payments for a period of time and they’ve been, not at all inappropriately, asking when we were going to begin making principal payments,” Mr. Firstenberg said. The Commonwealth National Bank in Worcester, where the craft center does most of its banking, also has been receiving interest-only payments on loans totaling about $29,000, he said. Other debt is in friendlier hands, he said, friends of the institution that had made loans last fiscal year to help hold the center over until pledge money came in.

I stopped in yesterday afternoon to check on the work which came out of the soda kiln the Monday before Christmas. (Which turned out really well, BTW.) The lights were off, but I figured that there was just no one in working. Nope. The head of the clay studio broke the bad news to me; of course, it's far worse for him, a loyal 15-year-professional who is out of a job. Apparently rumors had been swirling around the entire time I've been gone, so at least I missed the anticipatory anxiety. I just get the thud of loss and stress.

Angry deep thought: If the Craft Center had had the foresight to change its name to Worcester Center for Banking and Crafts a few years ago, we could fill out a two page form [pdf file] and get a billion dollars from Hank Paulsen.

This is a tragedy for the city of Worcester. The schoolkids who took classes at the Center, the high school students in the Teen Apprentice Program, all the adults who have taken classes, all will miss the school. Of course, part of the problem that the Crafts Center has had is that it is not the most well-known of Worcester's cultural institutions. PR was never their strong suit.

The clay studio is the largest of the Craft Center's areas by number of students, and that community will want to stay together. One of the great things about the Craft Center is the ability to work in a collegial atmosphere, with everyone getting great ideas and inspiration from each other. If the Center does close that will be my priority, being able to stay in touch and work near some of the artists I've met and become good friends with.

A sad day.


Worcester Telegram: Center for Crafts shuts doors

Slide Show: Worcester Craft Center Over the Years

Worcester Craft Center

Strategic Pause letter from WCC (pdf)

New Street Glass Studio Hot Shop Rental Rates

Happy Memorial Day

Telegram.com: €Fallen Flag, an artwork by Boylston artist Rebecca Fellows in the Worcester Center for Crafts student show, is made from portraits of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Below, the artist talks about her work.

Worcester Telegram: For those who died
Sorrow inspires art to honor fallen troops

Rebecca Fellows knows the numbers exactly. “When I did it, as of April 17, there were 3,682,” the Boylston artist said. “Since then there have been 120 more. There were 3,802 as of the 19th of May.”

It is a grim accounting. The figures refer to American troops who have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq so far. Fellows completed a piece of enameled art commemorating those troops on April 17, in time for the opening of a student show running at the Worcester Center for Crafts through Friday.

The piece then will be displayed in the windows of 339 Main St. as part of the “Worcester Windows” program, which places the work of local artists in downtown storefronts and office windows, many of which otherwise would be vacant.

From a distance, Mrs. Fellows’ piece, 43 inches wide and 32 inches high, looks like a beautiful rendering of an American flag waving slightly in the breeze. But take a few steps closer and you see faces looking back at you — soldiers, Marines, men, women, a uniformed father hoisting his baby girl in the air.

They are the faces of 3,682 fallen troops, each one in a tiny portrait, half an inch by half an inch, against a background of red, white and blue.

This very powerful piece is currently hanging in the Worcester Craft Center's student show.

A Bit of Shameless Self-Promotion

Worcester Craft Center
25 Sagamore Road
Worcester, MA 01605
508-753-8183

The Worcester Craft Center, where I take ceramics classes, is having a Studio Sale (pdf link) on March 24th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. All the studios in the center will be represented (clay, glass, photography, metals/jewelry, textiles, and wood) though I think there will be more pottery than anything else, as we are the largest and most active studio.

Brave (or crazy) soul that I am, I have signed up to sell my pots. No, those pictures up there aren't of my work, although they are available in the Center's gift shop. I do mostly handbuilding, and those pieces are all thrown on a wheel. I took a couple of wheel throwing classes, but wheel throwing is a much more physical process than handbuilding, as you lean and use your whole body as your hands push the clay into place, always fighting the spinning of the wheel. It tired me out. I wish I'd started at a younger age. I do love handbuilding though. There's nothing like playing with clay to clear your mind.

I am currently unpacking the many boxes of work in my spare room deciding what is good enough to sell, and then deciding how to price things. I'm bringing tiles, Christmas ornaments, vases, platters, and several raku pieces that aren't functional. (Raku is a Japanese firing technique where you take the pieces out of an outdoor kiln while they're red hot and quickly cool them. You get great colors, but the work isn't sealed and isn't food safe. Just fun to look at.) I have to get over my inner critic voice which sees the flaw in every pot rather than the beauty. So, stop by and check us out. There's a bake sale, too.

I wish I was as talented as my wheel throwing teacher, Kristen Kieffer. Check out her website:

Kristen Kieffer Ceramics

Centering

Just took my first wheel throwing class at the Worcester Craft Center. It seemed so simple when my teacher demonstrated. Then I got up there and couldn't remember which part of which hand was supposed to push or pull. Centering the clay is much more difficult than it looks. Great fun, though. I returned home covered with mud.

I am learning to throw while standing up. This is unusual. Most people learn on a low wheel while sitting on a small stool. You have to bend forward a little as you work. Many older throwers end up with significant back injuries and back surgeries. I read some articles this summer by a potter named John Glick. He would throw for 8 to 10 hours a day when he was young. I read an article of his from the 1970s where he described the dinnerware sets he made, one of which was purchased by Vice President Walter Mondale. Then I read an article he wrote in the late 1990s where he described learning to throw standing up after having disc surgery on his back. He made his own wheel by building a stand for his old one. I had been wary of the seated throwing position before reading his articles, and they cemented my desire to learn the modern way.

My teacher is Kristin Keiffer. She makes beautiful elegant ware, through a combination of throwing and handbuilding. She throws standing up, and told me she apprenticed with John Glick for a year! Small world. That's when she started to throw standing.

Kristin Keiffer Tea Set

John Glick dinnerware

Throwing is very different than handbuilding. You get and keep the clay so wet. I did make one small pot that wasn't horrible. I didn't have high expectations for my first day so was pleased that I made one thrown pot. There are two women in my class who took their first class last session. They were both amazed that I made a pot worth keeping!