Drive to the back of the Goleta Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and you’ll find a tidy metal prefab that you might assume is for storage. Unless, of course, the door is propped open, giving you a glimpse of the ambitious vases and textured, abstract vessels inside.
This unassuming metal building is Clay Studios, owned by area ceramic artists Sheldon Kaganoff and Patrick Hall. It’s their shared workspace and the small, open studio where they provide one-on-one instruction and independent studio time to interested locals, from elementary schoolers (with their parents) to senior citizens.
Clay Studios began when Kaganoff, a retired UCSB professor of art, reached out to Hall, a former student, about building a shared ceramics studio. “We had that little space, two of us working, and we had more equipment than we’d ever use, so we started talking about sharing the facility with the community,” said Hall. Besides, Kaganoff added, “I missed the students. I was pretty invested in [teaching] for 33 years.”
