The WCA Scholarship program is on hold.
For current opportunities, please visit the Artist Grants page.

Important information

• Deadline to apply: May 1st, 2020

• You must be a current member of the WCA

• The deadline for utilizing scholarship funds is 1 year from notification date

• Recipient is expected to provide the WCA with a written account (plus photos) of their experience, to be used on the WCA website, newsletter, and social channels

2019 Scholarship Recipient

We're thrilled to announce that WCA Member Mariella Luz has been awarded the 2019 WCA Scholarship. Read about her experience below.

Hello! My name is Mariella Luz and I’m a studio potter in Olympia.

I create work under the name m.bueno that primarily makes functional ware. Last summer I was able to attend a workshop at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina in part from help from the WCA Scholarship. I have to start by saying that while I often encourage others to apply for grants and scholarships I had never done it myself. The process of applying through the WCA was very approachable and hardly intimidating!

This was my third workshop at Penland & I really love it there. I came to pottery pretty recently and going back to school was not really an option for me. Being able to attend intensive workshops to develop and enrich my skills has been huge for my practice. Not only is it great to get out of my studio and into a new and different space, it is also awesome to be with so many other artists of all different kinds. Every experience has been amazing and I come home full of new ideas and tools.

The workshop I took was called Slipcast Design: Molds and Surfaces. Even though clay is my full time job, I had never done any slip casting before. I was drawn to the idea of the process because of the possibility of using it in production. In a two week workshop you dive right in. On our first day we were making models for what would be 18 part vessel molds! Over the next week we would learn how to mix plaster, create plaster molds from our models and slip cast many pieces. The learning curve was pretty steep and honestly, I just put my trust in our instructors. When they asked how things were going I had to just shrug because I couldn’t really even wrap my head around the process. But the payoff was huge and by the end of the first week everything came together and made sense! It kind of felt like a miracle. Since I’ve been home I was able to buy all of the supplies I needed (less than $100 at Home Depot) and have made some molds! As of right now I haven’t figured out how I will use this method in my studio. I have a few employees and the idea of creating molds that my studio assistants can use is pretty appealing but I haven’t taken the step (yet).

For anyone considering applying for this scholarship, I highly recommend it. Not only because the WCA makes the process so easy but spending time focusing on your skills is so valuable, a ceramicist of any level would benefit from it.