The Clay School’s Land Acknowledgement:

The Clay School is located on the traditional, ancestral & contemporary homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ people. It is on this land that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was cared for and called home for over 1,000 years, and it is on this land that sovereignty for the native nations in this territory is continuously fought for today. As people who occupy this land and therefore benefit from this genocidal colonial project, we honor and recognize the role we have in our responsibility to participate in reconciliation for the continued violence inflicted from settler colonialism. Every day we remind ourselves that our studio & classes operate on the stolen land of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ peoples and we are devoted to continuing our learning in how we can participate in honoring the work of repair and restitution that has been carved through generations of indigenous resistance movements. We identify our power within access and community space and are committed to finding ways we can collaborate to bring back balance by offering resources, scholarship, and pathways of access to clay and studio use to all marginalized people, whenever possible.

Statement of Commitment/Integrity:

Indigenous traditions are the foundations of ceramic arts and clay art has been one of the many cultural resources gatekept in our colonial society. Ceramic studio art spaces are historically white dominated and we seek to be a part of the movements working to shift that narrative. We believe in honoring this truth in our studio space through finding ways in which we can sustainably share our resources & knowledge in abundance, especially with those who are not typically accessing these spaces. We recognize that as a white, cis-woman owned space, we do not hold all the answers and we seek to be in right relationship with our community by holding our power with integrity, dignity, and accountability. . Communities across differences deserve the supported space to express creatively. We aspire to   prioritize safety and provide financial support and access to the offerings of this creative space Although we are not fully where we would like to be in what we can offer to community, we are committed to taking steps, big and small, towards this goal of actionable equity and solidarity.  The Clay School joyfully commits to learn how to hold this responsibility with care, expand the training of our staff to reflect this intention, and  to explore pathways to further our offerings of resources, scholarships, and opportunities. 

These steps towards change would have not been possible without the direction of our Transformative Consultant,  Sol Alexandria (they/them).  They partnered with us to ensure we were creating a culture of community, accountability, and care through our work. Sol assessed our studio and helped us identify patterns of colonialism and racialized capitalism within our work and shared with us pathways towards generative change. We honor their depth of knowledge, focused intention and loving care as they guided our administrative staff  through deep reflection and transformative learning. We are grateful for the opportunity to ask for help in this process and to be met by Sol with kindness, compassion, integrity, radical honesty, and love.