“Teens At the Wheel: A Day in Clay in Memory of Julia” at AMOCA

Two and half years ago a young Los Angeles girl named Julia Cukier Siegler lost her life in a traffic accident on her way to school. One of Julia’s many…

Two and half years ago a young Los Angeles girl named Julia Cukier Siegler

lost her life in a traffic accident on her way to school. One of Julia’s many passions was working with clay; at age 13 she was already skilled in the difficult craft of throwing pots on a wheel.

Now, in her memory, her parents have joined forces with AMOCA, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, located in Pomona, which both collects, and teaches, the art of ceramics. On Sunday afternoon, October 14, AMOCA will host Teens at the Wheel: A Day in Clay in Memory of Julia with Weil Ware Raffle and “Collecting California” Mixer. The event will give teens, for the cost of a raffle ticket, the chance to experiment on a potter’s wheel.

The day will also mark the start of AMOCA’s “Collecting California,” a show of production ceramics that flourished in mid-century Southern California (at its peak, the state boasted over 600 ceramic factories); it will feature a display of Weil Ware, maker of mass-produced, decorative dinnerware, that has been donated to the museum by Jody and Scott Siegler in memory of their beloved daughter.

One of the reasons ceramics is so appealing is because it bears the hand of the maker, and this has particular meaning for the Sieglers. Says Jody Siegler about the creations her daughter left behind, “I cup my hands around the bowls she once cupped with hers, each embedded with fingerprints of love and creativity, which remain forever fixed in the clay and the people she touched.”