Building Community Through Clay

My name is Rebecca Bartig, I’m a senior pursuing a Fine Art Major. I’m currently Interning at The Refinery. The Refinery is a local Ceramics studio focused on accessibility and community. It is run by an amazing artist, Jess Portas, who started the business by herself a little more than two years ago. Over the summer, I’m aiding her as a studio technician and through leading community outreach projects.

To dive deeper into the projects I’m working on, the Community Clay initiative is the bigger out of the two. The goal is to reach out to local organizations who help unrepresented and underserved people in the Walla Walla community, with the goal of partnering with them to provide clay hand building workshops. These workshops are an opportunity to offer access to a very privilege art medium with the guidance required to have creative freedom. Clay has many proven emotional benefits and can help people reconnect with their inner child. My goal over the summer has been to contact and organize these workshops. As this initial phrase is wrapping up, I will get to move to the exciting prospect of leading these workshops. Teaching is another aspect in which this internship offers and it’s a very common path for artist to follow. Getting an opportunity to test out the field is beyond valuable.

Moving on to the second project I’m operating, is builds off the Community Clay Initiative. It is an end of the summer art show for the participants of these workshops. There will be an optional prompt which I have help create for the classes. Each can choose to engage in the prompts and have it shown at in an art show focused on story telling. The hopes being that by giving people a chance to share their story we can bridge the gaps and find a greater sense of community in Walla Walla. I’m currently in contact with local businesses about hosting an art show and can’t wait to see what people create based on the prompts.

The Refinery has been essential to my career path. It has helped teach me what it takes to run a studio, work in a shared space, and improved my outreach skills. I know personally I feel lost at times with what I should pursue after college, but I’m positive my experience at The Refinery has expanded my comprehension of exciting future careers!