Clay Artists of San Diego (CASD, Inc.) began as a group called the Ceramic Artists of San Diego, which was organized in 1980. In 1985 it became a corporation. In 2006, we became a new corporation called CASD, Inc. and are a non-profit in the State of California and a 501(c)(3). We publish an informative newsletter, subscribed to by more than 150 professional clay artists, potters, and students from throughout San Diego County and beyond. Our purposes are to promote and enhance the view of the fine ceramic arts and artists to the general public through educational classes and workshops. As a group, we share mutual ideas, attend exhibits, galleries, studios and factories. We also host fun social activities that are related to clay including a desert pit firing, raku parties, and the every-other-year Mudfest.

>>View our IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter here<<

CASD History
In the early years including most of the 1980s, our workshops were held at local community colleges almost exclusively. They were frequently held at Grossmont College. Board meetings were held at the homes of Board members, and sometimes at the college.  The newsletter was a couple of pages printed in black and white on colored paper, and we really did physically cut and paste the articles and photographs! The newsletter only included local information and events planned by and for our membership. Most of our members were students or teachers. Back then, our finances were tracked rather loosely, and our bank balances rarely exceeded two thousand dollars. We never tried to make a profit for the group. Our primary objective was to have fun together, and learn more about what we could do with clay. When it came time at the end of the year to elect new officers for the Board, we had to have a quorum of the entire membership in order to vote.

During those early years, our group found local galleries willing to host a juried show of our members’ work once a year. We had some group sales, but not many. One fairly successful sale was called the Strawberry Festival, held on the property across from the Studio of Ceramic Arts in El Cajon. Laura Peterson used to teach classes at her Studio of Ceramic Arts through the Grossmont Adult Education Department, and it was a busy location for many years.  We held a couple of shows at a gallery in what is now called the Gaslamp Quarter called the Faith Nightingale Gallery, and at the Hyde Gallery at Grossmont College. Faith Nightingale Gallery closed years ago.

In the 1990s, we began to shift our location to Mesa College more and more. Dr. John Conrad became very actively involved in the group, and it was primarily he who suggested the workshop presenters. They would be invited to come to Mesa College, and the workshops were held in the ceramics lab there on campus. We began a program of videotaping the workshops, and a library of those tapes was kept at the college for use by CASD and the teaching staff. We offered a free workshop to anyone who was willing and able to video the workshop and make a copy for CASD archives.

At that time, a large percentage of the group’s membership was students from Mesa College. With the retirement of Dr. Conrad from his position there, we had to start looking in the greater community to find locations for workshops.  We still occasionally have held workshops at Mesa College. It is still a viable location as is Grossmont College, but there have been more restrictions placed upon us; among them required $2,000,000 insurance liability coverage, and the promise of student scholarships. Terry Sullivan offered to let us use Nottingham Center for the Arts in San Marcos, and it is very well equipped. He has been gracious and flexible and never asked us to pay him to use the space. We recently voted to pay him a portion of our proceeds when we can.

Also in that decade, we had some gallery exhibitions at the Sunstone Gallery in Bird Rock, and at Gallery Alexander in La Jolla. We had a show once at another gallery in La Jolla. These were all juried shows. Since then, Sunstone Gallery has closed and so has Gallery Alexander. It was during this period that plans were being made to re-develop the Naval Training Center into an Arts destination. Jackson Gray began to attend meetings there to see if maybe somehow, CASD could be one of the arts groups invited to move in there.

For ten years, we held onto the hope that we would be able to move there eventually. Our Board met with the new director of the NTC Foundation. We were taken on a tour of the old buildings, and offered some locations that were to be the first to be renovated. At that time, we were told that the rent per square foot would be around .80, and would only be offered to “non-profit” arts organizations. That is what got us to thinking that we should apply for our 501c3 status, so that we would be qualified to locate there.
In the year 1999, under the leadership of Karen Price, CASD organized a joint production of our first Mudfest in collaboration with the Potters’ Guild. It was held in Balboa Park and was a very big production. Karen did a terrific job. The following year, she produced the event again in Balboa Park, but it was more difficult to get the Potters’ Guild involved. The key contact person at Balboa Park who had allowed us to hold our event there, suddenly died.  When Elly Dotseth called Balboa Park to see if we could hold the Mudfest there again, she was told “No.” Part of the reason given was that there had been no written record of our ever having done so in the past. It seems that the woman with whom Karen had dealt, kept everything in her head, and left no paper trail… Elly was also told that if the Potters’ Guild wasn’t involved, we couldn’t hold any pottery related activities in Balboa Park because they were the potters of the park.

Karen decided that she would only produce the Mudfest again if CASD could pay her for all of the work involved. At that time, we had a very small budget, so we were unable to consider that option. CASD did pay Karen to make copies of all of the paperwork and a computer disc with all of the information she had amassed. It saved Elly a lot of time to have all of that information at her fingertips when she produced the Mudfest herself for the first time at Grossmont Shopping Center.

NCECA was held here in San Diego in 2003 and we teamed up with the San Diego Potters’ Guild to put together a very well received juried exhibition in the Balboa Park Club Building near the Aerospace Museum. It was on the map and bus route for the conference attendees and was well attended.
In 2004 or thereabouts, the Director of the NTC Foundation with whom we had originally begun negotiations, was replaced with another man. The Board met with him as well, and took another tour of the area. We all agreed that one particular building would be the best one for us to develop into a clay center, and we were told that we would be on an official waiting list for that space. Then we got a date from Mr. Ziter, telling us when he expected we would be able to move in. We were told it would be about two years. We decided that we should start a smaller version of what we had in mind to find out some of the things we would need to know, and to develop a business presence in the community.

A group of about 20 people met to brainstorm at Jackson Gray’s house to figure out how we wanted our place to operate and what services we wanted to offer. We had a really tough time figuring out how much it would cost us, and who would pay what. In the end, we settled on the original co-op structure for the CASD Gallery on Ray Street.  We had thought we knew what we were getting into, but we were naive. It was a real struggle the first two years to keep from losing money and having to default on our lease. Sales were nowhere near what we had anticipated they would be, and many of the original artists from CASD became very discouraged, and wanted to quit. The opportunity to renew our lease for one more year was presented, and since we were told that the NTC space still would not be ready for us, we decided to try a new method of organization and re-decorate the gallery. We managed to stay afloat through the final year, but it presented a new set of difficulties such as jurying in artists from other media, and scheduling management meetings. The management team was five people and each was responsible for a different segment of running the business. Only the managers really understood how much time was involved in keeping things running smoothly. The managers were all required to work various days during the month, and attend the monthly Ray at Night which invariably lasted until after 10pm.

I think that was the first time we realized that in order to keep quality people committed to their jobs we had to be able to offer them something in exchange for their hard work. That was the idea behind allowing the five managers free shelf space where they could display (and hopefully sell) their work. It didn’t amount to much, but it was something. Each of us had a vital role to play in the continuing operation and we earned every bit of the “free rent” that we got.
While operating the CASD Gallery was not the successful business we had envisioned, it did attract a lot of public attention to our organization, and it did bring in a lot of new members as a result of the exposure. While we were in our second year of business on Ray Street, we hired an attorney to file for a 501c3 tax exemption status on our behalf. It cost us around $6,000, but obtaining IRS non-profit status, has enabled us to obtain grant money and relatively inexpensive liability insurance. As a result of donations, grants and profit from sales at the gallery, ArtWalk and the parking lot sales we held on Ray Street, we have been able to accrue nearly $30,000 over the last three years.

We were really lucky for a couple of years to have Kelly DeFries producing our newsletter, because she worked in a graphics department, and had access to the printing machinery. She was able to print color newsletters at cost. But Kelly went another direction with her art work, and no longer is involved with clay. It was during Kelly’s tenure, that we began to include information about shows and other opportunities. We needed to “go digital” with our newsletter to cut down on the costs of printing and postage. Jason Clement joined the Board to become the next newsletter producer. Our newsletter includes lots of information for clay artists about juried exhibitions they may wish to enter, and many local pottery oriented shows and fairs, as well as our workshops and social activities. With the computer age have come new technical requirements for anyone who wishes to produce our newsletter, act as Secretary, and keep track of Membership. The computer has become a tool none of us can do without! We Board members communicate often by email between our monthly meetings.

While a Board member, Vaughan Nelson took over managing the web site for CASD. It was looking pretty good overall.  When Vaughan resigned his Board position, we were extremely fortunate to have Jason Clement take over that responsibility in addition to continuing to produce the newsletter. Jason and the Board decided it was time for a complete renovation of the website. He had to create what you see now from scratch. If we’d had to pay any one else to do this for our organization, it would have cost us hundreds of dollars. To continue to pay someone to update the web site would also cost hundreds of dollars a year.

The job of Workshop Organizer has also become much more involved than it used to be. Jackson Gray is the most recent Board member to make all of the contacts with our visiting artists, find locations for the workshops to be held, and often house the visiting artists at her home. She often transports the artists to and from the airport, and feeds them meals. She has also been responsible for seeing to it that workshop attendees have food and coffee in the morning, potluck organized for lunch, and has done anything necessary to gather materials in advance for the presenters including clay, wheels, slide projectors or digital equipment. Jackson has also been the contact person for the Talmadge Art Show and the ArtWalk.             

The position of President has become a lot more involved that it was in years past. At one time it primarily involved coming up with an agenda for the monthly meeting, and trying to get all of the Board members to stick to it. Over the last three years it has involved writing articles for the newsletter in addition to a “President’s Letter,” creating budget projections using Excel programs, negotiating with landlords, signing contracts, working with public school personnel, running the Mudfest and working with North Park Main Street’s Director while we had our gallery there. The President is the contact for information, and currently even her home phone number is doing double duty and is the listed number for CASD.

Also as a result of obtaining our 501c3 status, we have had to be far more careful in our accounting practices. (We are in a probationary period and will be reassessed by the IRS before we receive a final determination.) That means we need a Treasurer who is technically savvy and able to keep the kinds of clear records we would need to satisfy the IRS. Our Treasurer is now responsible for filing monthly comprehensive financial reports for the Secretary’s book and emailing them to all of the Board members each month. John Conrad served as our Treasurer prior to our current Treasurer Jordan Liberman. End of the year reports must be filed with the IRS, and we have had to hire an Accounting firm to be sure that everything is done correctly. Jordan has had to go through years of financial records from not only the corporate books, but the Gallery books as well, to get them all to be in presentable shape.
We now have two new Board Members, Amy 3Foot Valerias, and Merle Lambeth, who will take over the position of Membership Coordination when Joyce James leaves in a couple of months. They have some dynamic ideas to get this group to be more responsive to the various needs of the clay community, and we are all looking forward to seeing CASD continue to grow as a vital connection for the potters and clay artists of the San Diego Area.

Clay Artists of San Diego,  
P.O. Box 22524, San Diego, CA  92192
e-mail: info@clayartistsofsandiego.org