Clay Day began at Cubberley School, a transitional kindergarten through 8th grade campus in Long Beach Unified School District. It started in 2019 as a free after-school class offered to the entire school by a single parent volunteer. Ten students were chosen by a “pottery lottery” every 6 weeks. The demand was enormous. Students in transitional kindergarten sat alongside 8th graders once a week to make and glaze pots. The class generated such interest that we held a school-wide Ceramic Saturday event in December of that year. Families were invited on campus over the weekend to make ceramic pieces together outside at the lunch benches. We had a massive turnout during which over 150 ceramic pieces were made.

When campuses around the country closed to in-person instruction in March 2020, the ceramics program moved online. Through online videos, we delivered lessons in clay that families had picked up first from a cardboard box on the front porch of our house and then from the back of our cars on material and textbook pick up days. The ingenuity of getting clay into the hands of kids during the pandemic and creating virtual ceramic lessons lead to Cubberley’s first school-wide mosaic mural, which now hangs in the library.

With students back on campus and thanks to the willingness of devoted teachers, we moved the program into classrooms during the school day. Partnering with the teachers, we delivered lessons to students in their own classrooms. Our goal was to reach every grade level, every classroom, every student at no cost to teachers. Free art for all! We love the benefits of working with teachers in their own space. By incorporating ceramics into students’s days Clay Day wants to make art less of an after-school enrichment opportunity and more of an intellectual endeavor integral to student success. 

Because of the generosity and support of Cubberley’s community, Clay Day was born! We are now able to take our elementary ceramics expertise to the larger city of Long Beach! All for art and art for all!