Letter to our Community: Connections

Jessica Zeng, Soap for the Soul, 2020 for Clay Art Center’s Connections Digital Exhibition

May 30, 2020

I have only been at  Clay Art Center for less than a year, but I am proud to be  working for an organization that has a strong connection and care for its community. I am happy to be part of the Connections Exhibition, a virtual call-for-entry exhibition we are offering.

The Connections Exhibition seeks to weave together our experiences with Covid-19 in the ceramics community and beyond. I have found that together, our mourning, anxieties, and positive thoughts transcend our individual views, a liberating experience while we have been isolated and cooped up at home.

To me, this exhibition is a platform not just to be a participating artist, but also to be a real human experiencing this pandemic, outside of my home. Sharing a part of myself through my submission, especially my thoughts on racially motivated hate crimes triggered by the pandemic, has been transformative for me. It has allowed me to reflect on what can I do as an artist, a ceramicist, a Chinese American citizen, and as a human. #washthehate is currently a trending pandemic hashtag on social media, but I’d like to address another side of hate, which is fear. Often, hate stems from fear, and this is why we must take care to check where our prejudices and anxieties come from. #washyourfear. 

My submission features a drawing of a wall-mounted soap holder, to be made into ceramics. In the background, the tiles separated by #washyourfear, repeat. There is no soap bar in the picture because it is already in your hands.

I hope that every time we wash our hands we can take a moment to breathe for ourselves, that it becomes a purification ritual, and that our fears wash away.

We will be alright.

At the end of this all, what may be melancholy, yet the most heartening and necessary, is solid proof of what exactly we, as a whole, went through during the pandemic, how we behaved, and how we responded. Creating art is always a means to start rehabilitation and to record experiences. Making art for Connections has jump-started a recovery I didn't know that I needed. 

Please join me in submitting your story to Connections through July 15th!

Best regards,

Jessica Zeng
Program and Sales Assistant

*Originally posted May 30, 2020 in our weekly email newsletter.