About Our Scholarship Fund
Our scholarship fund is designed to help pay the way through college for students studying ceramics. The goal of our program is to raise enough money to really make a difference in the ability of a young student to graduate college.
K12 Clay wants to serve our top students with scholarships that really matter. While our Awards Program recognizes excellence in younger students, using awards and funds for that purpose, scholarships require much more money to truly be meaningful to a student facing college costs. At this point our fund is large enough money to give some money each year forever. Today the amount we can safely give away, and still maintain the integrity of the fund, is limited.
Our fund-raising drive aims to continuously add more money to the fund so the interest will generate enough money to make a major difference in college plans for our scholarship winners. We also have named scholarships that are refreshed annually, forever, by families and company's for a set amount each year.
The scholarships we give are linked to The National K12 Ceramic Exhibition. The students who win them are winners in the exhibition. When seniors respond to the call for entries, they can read a questionnaire made available by the foundation board. Their responses to the questionnaire, and the quality of their art work, determine eligibility for consideration of scholarships.
Our Scholarship Fund Raising History: The Dream and A Promise
When Nancy and Ken Ernst began the scholarship fund in 2005 with a $10,000 contribution, they were promised the fund would be grown. Scholarship fund-raising began at the 2006 exhibition in Portland and our program has been growing steadily since then. During the three days of the exhibit, more than $1,000 was raised for deposit into the sinking fund thanks to a large donation by The Williams` of Trinity Ceramic Supply of Dallas, Texas, a jurors grant from Professor Michel Conway, and a donation from Barbara Beasley, an amazingly generous donation from the Damore twins, Maddy and Maxine, (and parents Robin and Dennis) who, as students, worked the desks at the exhibition.
In 2007 we received our largest contribution from Ingrid and Marvin Mahan and The Ingrid Mahan Foundation. That year juror Dan Hammett created the first scholarship and award for a teacher of ceramics, The Regina Brown Teacher Development Award. His work and generosity was joined by Rick MacPherson of Aardvark.
Again in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Ingrid and Marvin Mahan matched their previous donations, assuring that our foundation and its scholarship fund would endure.
In 2010, two new major awards were created. The Emily C. Specchio Foundation created an annual $1,000 scholarship in Emily's name.
2010 also witnessed our first Scholarship Benefit, an on-line sale of ceramic work donated by our friends. The generosity was impressive and management by Charlie Cummings Gallery made the entire event a success.
In 2012 two new scholarships were created by Jeff and Bond Sandoe on behalf of American Art Clay Company and Amaco/brent. These awards, in the amount of $1000 each, are for direct payment toward tuition.
In 2012 we also received another grant from The Ingrid Mahan Foundation aimed at helping us to complete the revision of our website and better serve students seeking scholarships.
In 2013, Special student and teacher awards were also created by Dick and Barbara Wukich to honor Daniel Rhodes’ 100th birthday, and contributions to American ceramics by Val Cushing. Other special awards include The Helen and Daniel Feder Award for excellence scholarship and overcoming problems.
In 2014 the k12clay Board of Trustees began discussions to formalize our process of adding names of esteemed members of the clay community to our scholarship program in remembrance. The board also voted to create The Val Cushing Scholarship Program.
In 2015 Kansas City Art Institute created our largest set of scholarships to date. They are now offering 5 scholarships to top students in this K-12 Exhibition. Each of the awards is for 4 years totaling up to $88,000. They also offer summer program awards to worthy students. These join Sierra Nevada College offering 4 year renewable scholarships for a total of $40,000.
In 2018 Alfred University partnered with k12clay to offer The k12clay/Alfred University Val Cushing Scholarship. A Full, 4 year college scholarship to attend Alfred and studythe ceramic arts where Professor Val Cushing taught and chaired the department. Our k12clay juror in 2004, NCECA president, and mentor to k12clay, this Val Cushing Scholarship Program was created with the help of Alfred President Mark Zupan, Alfred alumnus Professor Dick Wukich of Slippery Rock University and the k12clay board of trustees. We are honored to partner with Alfred University and enable a young ceramics student to carry forward the excellence we seek, now in the name of Professors Val Cushing, Ted Randall and William Parry. Additional Alfred scholarship include Wallace C. Higgins and Marion Fosdick.
Also in 2018 we accepted generosity from 2016 k12clay Juror, Jack Troy, who honored his teacher, Mary Bowron, with a $500 annual scholarship and 5 other student awards of merit, all funded by selling off parts of his personal collection of ceramic art.
During 2019-20 we added six new awards and scholarships including Kim Ernst, Alex Solorzano and family creating The Shadow Award, Juror, Eva Kwong creating two awards to honor Kirk Mangus and his parents, Richard Notkin for creating his Award for Narrative Ceramic Art, Artaxis and Watershed both created new awards, and The Dennis Maza Memorial Scholarship award to honor a talented teacher across many media including ceramics, whose influence is partially responsible for the founding of this foundation, k12clay.org. Dennis Maza was amazing.
To "really make a difference" in funding the educational costs of a serious ceramics student, we need the kind of big money all parents understand when considering college for their children. The excellence we seek to showcase at k12clay informs us each year which students deserve scholarships. Sending these young students off to college with the pride of knowing they have contributed to solving financial problems with quality ceramic art is our goal. We have been succeeding at this since 2005. Our program continues to grow as we aim to fully support the best in young ceramic artists in America.