Growing Community

Lisa Orr, Ann Marie Cooper, Simon Levin, Birdie Boone

It's been a while since I've written a long post here. I've been up to a lot over the past couple of years. So many things. One of the biggest things has been taking on the management role of Cohorts.Art, of which I'm very proud to be a part.

Cohorts.Art is a small batch mentorship program created by my good friend, Simon Levin. The program rose from an idea sparked during the COVID pandemic, and then was launched in 2021.  After a year developing the program, Simon decided to expand and take on more mentors and a manager(me) to help with the growth in 2022, and now in its third year, the program has grown again, with further plans for expansion in 2024! It's very exciting.

We have students coming together from across the globe for this opportunity to work one-on-one with an experienced mentor and build a community within their small cohort of fellow students--and the students in the other cohorts.

At our workshop in Illinois in October 2022, Simon and I were thrilled to have so many past, present and future Cohorts cross our paths during the week. 

At NCECA this year we scheduled a meet-up for all past and present Cohorts and were able to lunch with at least 18 students and program mentors. Friendships developed and folks began sharing their NCECA experiences the rest of the week.

Coincidentally (and not-so-coincidentally) and quite fortunately, I have several Cohorts in my neck of the woods here in Washington.  Laura Skiles-Bundy and Will Abraham have become regular helpers at my soda firings at Burnish Clay Studio. And yes, we talk about their Cohorts experience A LOT because they're SO EXCITED about it. (Yay!)

Laura Skiles-Bundy, Ann Marie, Will Abraham

I also host an annual exhibition of the Clay Cohorts work at Good Earth Pottery, to close out their Cohorts year and celebrate their achievements.  Having some local folks around added to the festivity with an opening reception.

Ann Marie Cooper, Any Guelmann, Will Abraham

We're excited (have I mentioned excitement?) at how the program is growing, and that we're moving into other disciplines beyond clay, like writing, and hopefully painting and other creative pursuits in the future.

We also are partnering with The Color Network for our BIPOC Artist Scholarship Program.

And we have received a generous donation to fund our Cohorts.Art Lecture series.

2024 will have some new mentors added to the options, and more excitement!

Ann Marie Cooper, Simon Levin, Yael Braha, Andrew Linderman