The Clay Club: Sculpture Center Returns to its Roots

Clay Club Program Celebrates SculptureCenter Origins

August 22, 2017 / Long Island City Neighborhood / Arts in Queens / Queens Buzz NYC.

Last Saturday I attended the Clay Club program hosted by the SculptureCenter. Five years ago, in 2012, the SculptureCenter began hosting a block party. The outdoor party made use of its unique location on Purves Street in LIC, which was across from an open unused lot and located in a quiet dead end street. Hence the block party was able to fill the vacant space with guests who spilled out onto the dormant, decayed urban landscape, in a celebration of Long Island City’s past and imminent future.

Fast-forward to today, and Purves Street is now occupied by several shiny new high rises towering over it, bringing hundreds of new residents to the once quiet street. Thus in the Winter / Spring of 2017, the Sculpture Center staff - lead by Executive Director & Chief Curator Mary Ceruti – began the discussion of the upcoming block party with an open ended conversation about approaching it from a new angle. Mary and her artistic staff eventually arrived and settled upon an idea – throw a Clay Club event.

Click here to read the rest of our story about the origins of the SculptureCenter & the Clay Club event in LIC.