Clay Art Center welcomes 2022-23 artists-in-residence

For over 60 years, artists have been advancing their careers at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester. This year marks the 25^th anniversary of Clay Art Center’s nationally recognized artist-in-residence program. Their Residency program, which commences each year in September, is uniquely designed for emerging artists who need time and space to develop their voices. Since its inception in 1998, over 50 young emerging artists have called Clay Art Center “home.” Many of their past residents have gone on to careers in the ceramics field as artists and educators, and many continue their relationship with Clay Art Center through exhibition, shop and educational opportunities.

They are excited to welcome their 25^th residency class: Avery Wells (Rittenberg Artist-in-Residence), Jon Green, Anny Chen (Returning Artist-in-Residence) and Jess Levin (Westchester Community Fellow). The residents work throughout the year on solo exhibitions which will be presented in the Clay Art Center gallery and online from June 22 through August 4, 2023. They will be teaching classes this year and will be a great addition to the Clay Art Center community!

Resident artist bios

Avery Wells (Rittenberg Artist-in-Residence) received her MFA from SUNY New Paltz and also holds BAs in Art History and Ceramics from UNC Asheville. Her works have been exhibited in group shows and craft fairs through western North Carolina and the Hudson Valley. Avery’s vessels and botanical sculptures explore feminine histories in the decorative arts and seek an alternate route away from traditional standards of beauty and craft. She will be teaching Introduction to Wheel Throwing, Pottery for Beginners and Surface Decoration, this fall.

Jon Green completed his BFA at the University of Montana with a minor in Art History, and worked as a studio assistant for Julia Galloway, Trey Hill, Casey Zablocki, and Anton Alvarez. Jon has attended Red Lodge Clay Center’s ASPN program, RLCC’s Long-term Residency, as well as an Artist in Residency at Medalta. Jon’s work pays homage to the craftspeople and merging customs of the Americas through aggrandizing objects and ornamentation. He will be teaching Introduction to Wheel Throwing, Pottery for Beginners, Introduction to Handbuilding and Handbuilding for All Levels this fall.

Anny Chen (Returning Artist-in-Residence) holds a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has studied at the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China. She has been a studio tech at BKLYN CLAY. Her wheel thrown and hand-built stools are influenced by traditional Chinese ceramic craft practices, the history of functional pottery and the domestic setting. Through her work, Anny questions what it means to belong to a family, a community, or a place. She was born in New York, New York, and raised in Nowata, Oklahoma interspersed with visits back to her ancestral home in Fuzhou, China. She will be teaching Wheel for All Levels, Intermediate Wheel: Throwing Bigger and Intermediate Wheel: Thrown & Altered this fall.

Jess Levin (Westchester Community Fellow) has earned a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase, NY, concentrating in ceramics with hints of fabrics to show the balance between the soft and the fragile. They use a bright, colorful, cartoonish sculpting style to bring to life a narrative of self-exploration and expression. They will be teaching as part of our community arts program with focus on afterschool clay classes for the Port Chester Community. The Westchester Community Foundation has been funding the Westchester Community Fellowship since its inception in 2011.

This fellowship was made possible by the Westchester Community Foundation, a division of The New York Community Trust. Westchester Community Foundation’s mission is to connect generous people to the causes they care about and invest in transformative ideas and organizations to improve lives and strengthen our community. WCF is a division of The New York Community Trust, one of the largest community foundations in the country, with assets of approximately $3 billion.