Designs For Living at a Pottery Studio
Jan 14, 2001
Sam Lubell

At first glance, Bodanna looks like a typical East Village ceramics gallery, selling hypercool vases, bowls and tiles apparently destined for local coffee tables. But much of the pottery is designed not by professional artists but by apprentices from low-income backgrounds.

The nonprofit gallery, which opened in April at 125 East Seventh Street, near First Avenue, fits into the neighborhood with its exposed brick walls, I-beam ceiling and funky display pedestals. Classes take place in the well-equipped studio on the floor below the gallery; the director, Kurt Huddleston, a ceramic artist, and other instructors teach apprentices to become potters and entrepreneurs. They also instruct them in the life skills they need after they have finished the program. ''I tell our kids, if you do what you love and work hard, you can be a success,'' Mr. Huddleston said.

Apprentices stay for two years, learning the fundamentals of ceramics, then moving on to design elements, and soon selling their work in the gallery. They receive 20 percent of the value of the sales. The rest goes back to the program. The students are paid $6.50 an hour initially, then $8.50 as production rises. They also get a $1,500 scholarship after their first year and a $4,000 scholarship after the second.

The apprenticeship aims to prepare participants for employment in the arts and elsewhere. There is a course in business management and there are plans to have local business people come in to speak. Apprentices also sell their work directly to commercial establishments, and create their own businesses.

One of the three current apprentices is Alayda Cepeda, a 20-year-old single mother from the Bronx who lives in a Covenant House residence. She views the apprenticeship, which she began three months ago, not only as a way to make money and help her career prospects but also as a way to escape her problems. ''I take all my frustrations out in my job,'' she said, pointing proudly to the cups she is working on.

Financing comes mostly from Bodanna's founder and chairman, Scott Sinclair. The program hopes eventually to sustain itself largely by selling apprentices' work.

''We don't expect our stuff to be bought because it's made by students from underprivileged backgrounds,'' Mr. Sinclair said. ''We expect it because they're capable of making great work.''

A Little Help from Some Friends
August 2001
by Samara Lentz

The Bodanna Apprenticeship Program lends Young, Low-income Artists a Hand Getting Started

It’s hard to make it in the world of crafts. It takes guts, determination, business knowledge and, for ceramic artists, enough love for the art to lock yourself in the studio for hours in front of the wheel, throwing bowl, upon bowl … upon bowl ….

New York City artist Loriana Martinez is learning this latter part well. She is one of three apprentices in the Bodanna Apprenticeship Program, which was established in April 2000. This year, the New York City-based Bodanna Studio held its first anniversary celebration and fund-raiser, selling hundreds of bowls (filled with chili) thrown by Martinez and the other apprentices. With the help of local restaurateurs and caterers who donated an endless supply of chili and corn bread, Bodanna raised nearly $10,000.

Bodanna and its apprenticeship program

Bodanna is a ceramics studio created to foster personal and professional growth in gifted young adults from low-income communities in New York City’s five boroughs. The apprenticeship program teaches every aspect of studio ceramics and effective business practices. It provides talented, young adults with a chance to have a career in the craft industry, while equipping them with life skills needed for any position in the work force. The program holds positions for up to eight, 18- to 22-year-old low-income artists from the area.

A learning environment

Everyone at Bodanna wears many hats. Executive Director Curt Huddleston, who has a master’s degree in studio arts from the State University of New York, and Assistant Director Kathy Cherry, who has a master’s degree in metalsmithing and jewelry design, teach the apprentices in the classroom, as well as in the studio. At least once a week the apprentices are immersed in intense business training. That is why Bodanna is looking for volunteers both for teaching ceramics and for teaching the apprentices valuable business skills, says Huddleston.

Cherry suggests that students in some art schools might not get the same business experience that Bodanna offers its apprentices. She has just finished giving a free, five-week marketing course in which apprentices learn from Cherry and other volunteers how to write résumés, put together press kits, construct their own Web sites, design logos and do their own photography.

Perhaps the most unique business training apprentices receive is the opportunity to deal with customers and run the storefront where their own work is sold. “Basically, this is really a full-fledged program,” assesses Huddleston.

The benefits pay off

The invitation to the chili-bowl fiesta boasts that any donation is an investment in talented young lives, and Loriana Martinez is proving the benefits of such investments. She has applied to the State University of New York’s bachelor of studio arts program in ceramics. The agency is assisting Martinez, as it plans to do for all interested apprentices.

That is where the $10,000 from the fund-raiser will be spent. For apprentices who stay in the program for one year, $1,500 will be awarded to them at the completion of that year in the form of a scholarship. Apprentices like Martinez, who plan to stay the full two years, receive the highest benefit of the program and secure a $4,000 scholarship.

If they want to go into studio work, we’ll find production or studio positions for them,” remarks Huddleston. Or, if the apprentice is ambitious enough to start her own studio, the scholarship money can be used to offset the cost of startup fees.

Since Bodanna is a nonprofit venture, any funds not used to maintain the program are funneled directly to the apprentices in the form of a weekly salary. Paid between $6.50 and $8.75 an hour, these young adults can afford to learn the fine craft of ceramics while supporting themselves on their own art.

“[I’d like to see] kids come and stay like I did,” Martinez says, hoping for the program’s future success. “It’s a great opportunity for kids … who go to school and want to do pottery and art, and don’t know where to start.”

Bodanna offers free ceramics classes so that those who qualify can sample the apprenticeship program before they enroll.

Who’s to say that Martinez won’t still have to struggle to sculpt a place for herself in the world of ceramics, but without the help of the Bodanna Apprenticeship Program, she may never have had the chance to try.

Samara Lentz is The Crafts Report’s summer intern.

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