Clay Art Center is happy to announce a Call for Entry to "Functional Fall: Shake It Up", guest juried by Austin Coudriet & Nikki Lau.

Submission Period Begins: February 1st, 2025
Deadline: May 18th, 2025

Exhibition: September 1st – October 18th, 2025

Juror Prizes: $300 (Decided upon by jurors) / $100 (People’s Choice Decision)

Para acceder a esta información en español, visite: https://www.clayartcenter.org/call-for-entry

Full details available: https://www.clayartcenter.org/call-for-entry

Our Call For Entry Exhibition in 2025 is Shake It Up, guest juried by Austin Coudriet & Nikki Lau. The Third Annual Functional Fall Exhibition at Clay Art Center features ceramic salt and pepper shakers and cellars, and encourages submissions from artists at all stages of their careers.  

Salt and pepper shakers have been integral to our daily lives for over 200 years, playing a crucial role in cooking, dining, and the overall food experience. Though often considered ordinary objects, salt and pepper shakers (along with salt cellars or salt pigs) boast a rich history as collectibles, souvenirs of travel, and reflections of design trends. These simple items, intricately intertwined with human history, also serve as silent witnesses to the complexities of colonization. Their contents—salt and pepper—carry stories of trade, exploration, and culture. This Call for Entries invites ceramic artists to create functional salt and pepper shakers or cellars, and encourages them to explore the theme from a variety of perspectives, including function, style, culture, and social significance.

Guest Jurors

Austin Coudriet is a ceramic artist, designer, and educator, currently based out of Helena, Montana where he is a long-term resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation. Born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, He earned his BFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2019. Coudriet was a long-term resident at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, New York (2019-21) and at The Clay Studio of Missoula (2021-23). He has also had short term residencies at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (2021) and The LUX Center for the Arts (2020). Over the past decade, Coudriet’s work has been showcased in prominent ceramic exhibitions across the country, including solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Missoula, and Lincoln. His work has also been featured in international publications, most notably in Vogue Magazine—Vogue Living. Recently Coudriet has led ceramic furniture workshops across the United States— in New York, California, Texas, Montana, and Pennsylvania — and internationally in France, Spain, Chile, and Mexico. 

Learn more about Austin Coudriet

Guest Juror Nikki Lau was born and raised in San Francisco, CA. She received her MFA at Penn State in 2016. Penn State awarded her the Bunton Waller Assistantship. She received her BA in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts at the University of Washington in 2008. She was an Artist-in-Residence at The Clay Art Center New York from 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 a resident artist at Armory Art Center in Florida. Nikki has done short term residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Arrowmont’s Pentaculum and an international residency at Casa Lu Sur in Mexico City. She’s participated in art shows throughout the country. She currently splits her time between California and Pennsylvania living her snowbird life as she works on her pottery and home décor business Little Lau Shop.

Learn more about Nikki Lau

The Mission of the Clay Art Center Gallery is to provide a platform for emerging and established artists to explore a wide range of topics that address materials, processes and techniques, and to engage in critical dialogue through clay. We are committed to exhibiting a variety of work representing diverse backgrounds, and we support our artist and student communities through gallery programming opportunities.

La misión de la Galería del Clay Art Center es proporcionar una plataforma para artistas emergentes y establecidos en donde se exploran una gran variedad de temas que abarcan materiales, procesos y técnicas, y se fomenta un diálogo crítico a través de la cerámica como medio de expression. Clay Art Center se compromete en exponer una variedad de trabajos que representan orígenes y contextos diversos, apoyando a todos sus artistas y estudiantes a través de las oportunidades de la programación de la Galeria

Application Requirements

Before beginning submission, applicants should prepare their portfolio in the CaFÉ™ portal.

Applicants must be prepared to provide the following:

• Artist statement (up to 1000 characters - Do not include artist name in statement.)

Each work submitted must include the following details:

• Title
• Medium (60 character limit)
• Height/Width/Depth
• Price
• Year completed
• Primary Discipline (ceramics)
• Description (300 character limit)

No changes will be allowed once an entry is accepted into the database. Proofread your data carefully as this information may be used to generate the catalog, insurance, and publicity information

To Apply, please read ALL the information outlined below:

• Create a CaFÉ™ profile: www.callforentry.org
• Upload Work Samples: Uploaded media files will be stored in your CaFÉ™ Portfolio so you can submit them to calls. You will choose which media files to submit to a call when you fill out the application.
  • CaFÉ™ Image Guideline: Only JPEGs up to 5MB with a minimum of 1920 pixels on the longest side.
• Media file submissions must comply with specifications found at CaFÉ™ https://www.callforentry.org/artist-help-cafe/uploading-media/
• For complete specifications, tutorials, and resources, please go to CaFÉ™ Help: https://www.callforentry.org/artist-help-cafe/

Eligibility Criteria

Clay Art Center accepts submissions from all US based artists regardless of race, color, gender, religion, disability, national or ethnic origin.

As Clay Art Center strives to deepen our connections to our local families and community in the Port Chester, NY area, we especially encourage Artists of Latina/o/x and Hispanic origin to submit. According to data released in 2019 by the American Community Survey, our local Hispanic* community makes up 64.8% of the population in Port Chester. Clay Art Center hopes to particularly highlight participating Latina/o/x and Hispanic artists in this exhibition as part of our efforts to celebrate Hispanic Heritage month.

*The definition of the word Hispanic does not truly illustrate the complexity of demographics of our community but it is widely used in statistical research and surveys like the 2020 Census or American Community Survey.

Exhibition Guidelines

    Primary medium must be ceramic / clay – at least 85% where other media are utilized. Clay Art Center is a non-profit organization for the ceramic arts, and does not accept works in polymer clay, or paintings.

• Artists must be based in the United States and over the age of 18.
• Works must have been made within the last two years
• Works presented must be available and for sale at time of exhibition.
• Works may not be listed elsewhere for sale during the exhibition, including ETSY listings, or on artists online Shops.
• Work must stay in the gallery until the exhibition ends.
• Gallery commission is 40% of selling price.
• Artists are responsible for the cost of shipping their work to Clay Art Center.
• Artwork that is hand delivered must be picked up at the end of the exhibition.
• Work that has been shipped to CAC will be returned at CAC’s expense.

Fee

• There is a $25 application fee

Number of Works

• No more than 3 artworks may be submitted for consideration

Deadlines

• Application Deadline: May 18th, 2025
• Adjudication: May 21st - May 31st, 2025
• Notification: By June 9th, 2025
• High-Resolution Images for Press Release: June 16th, 2025
• Work Received: August 11th - 15th, 2025
• Exhibition Dates: September 1st – October 18th, 2025
• Work Returned: by the end of October 2025