Our Programs

 
 
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ALABAMA CLAY CONFERENCE

The Alabama Clay Conference, as an initiative of the Alabama Visual Arts Network, serves practitioners and students of the ceramic arts. The conference celebrates and promotes the unique flavor of ceramics in Alabama by offering a balance of exhibition and educational programs intended to increase professionalism, inform technique, and inspire artistic expression of all participants.

THE 37TH ALABAMA CLAY CONFERENCE

FEBRUARY 18 - 19TH, 2022 IN SHELBY COUNTY, ALABAMA

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ALABAMA ARTS TRAIL

The Alabama Arts Trail is a program developed by the Alabama Visual Arts Network that will maintain a map and website to serve as a resource to help the public locate artists and arts organizations and to promote an annual weekend dedicated to visiting artist studios, galleries and art organizations throughout the state.

The Alabama Arts Trail will:

  • Support artists financially.

  • Build awareness of the visual arts in Alabama.

  • Better integrate all visual artists into their communities.

  • Highlight visual art excellence in Alabama regionally and nationally.

Most artists work in studios near their residences. These centers of creativity, production and inspiration are located throughout the state, from downtown to the end of a dirt road, and often the public isn’t aware that there are artists working nearby. Wherever artist studios are, they are exciting places to visit and celebrate the dynamic process of producing a finished work of art. The Alabama Arts Trail will also address a critical aspect affecting many artists ability to create sustainable careers: Audience. Drawing from a 2013 survey of over 3,500 visual artists by the Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+), it is sobering to learn that 75% of full-time artists earn less than $25,000 a year from their artwork. Building audience awareness will assist The Alabama Arts Trail will build a bridge between working artists and willing customers, promote artistic awareness and nurture economic development. Please help us build the bridge that will connect, support and celebrate the visual arts in Alabama.

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Creating Your Career

Creating Your Career is a professional development course for artists and craftspeople working in all media. In this paramount course, celebrated ceramicist, teacher, and author Curtis Benzle and other professional artists outline how creative intelligence can be more completely used to develop new income streams, opportunities, and financial success under Curt’s “All Artists Making a Living Model.”