Never before has comfort been more necessary or more elusive. We define it differently now. Now, it’s simpler on one hand, and has evolved to include the complexity of a global community on the other. For thousands of years, in nearly all parts of the world, ceramics have been a part of our story. We include ceramics in our celebrations, our rituals, our storytelling, and our otherwise mundane daily routines. Ceramics accurately record the way we live/ when we live, and this time we are all sharing is no different. We employ ceramics to drink that solitary cup of coffee at a solitary home desk. We sell ceramics to raise funds, effect change, and raise awareness for our neighbors and communities who deserve allyship. We turn to potters, sculptors, and makers to create works of import, from bowls to aid food security organizations to works that give voice to the unheard to final vessels that honor those we’ve lost.
We have voiced our appreciation for you and your unshakable support. This winter, as many of you renew your memberships or donate to our organization, you can feel confident that the gesture is felt more deeply this year than ever before.
But this winter, we also share our gratitude for the opportunity to do for others. We recognize the year has brought to us the need to reflect on our responsibility and role in our community. We are thankful for the room to learn and engage in more tangible, and far longer-lasting, endeavors to ensure meaningful diversity, impactful equity, and genuine inclusivity.
As a small, but worthy, step in an impactful direction, we redirected the funds set aside to print our American Pottery Festival catalog out into the greater community. We asked our APF guest artists to each recommend an organization and distributed the funds equally between the 25 organizations they chose to support. We were able to honor their partnership with us by launching our combined efforts out into the greater world. Below is a list of the organizations chosen by this year’s APF guest artists. We ask that you consider expanding the reach of their support and unrelenting hard work by considering a donation as well.
Thank you, and we wish you great success in both finding, and providing, comfort.
Organizations nominated for support by our APF artists include:
- ACLU
- Alianza Norco The BrandLab
- The Carbondale and Rural Fire Protection District (CRFPD)
- Center for Black Equity Claymakers.org Democracy Now!
- The E.S.T.E.E.M. Group Gravity Water
- Kino Border Initiative The Lake Street Council MIGIZI Communications
- Minnesota Education Equity Partnership Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center NCC
- NCECA Multicultural Fellowships North Dakota Museum of Art Northside Achievement Operation Underground Railroad Organize 2020
- #restorethenorth
- Second Harvest Heartland
- Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico WBC Northside Funders Group
- Wellstone Center Neighborhood House
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