Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center in Solomons has been awarded a $500,000 Arts Capital Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council — the maximum amount available under the program — to convert its current maintenance barn into an expanded community Clay Studio that will triple the organization’s ceramics capacity.
Annmarie is one of nine organizations statewide selected for a capital grant this year out of a pool of 34 applicants, and the first organization in Calvert County to receive one since the program’s creation. The Arts Capital Grant, established under Maryland’s Economic Development Code in 2024 and funded at $3 million annually through fiscal 2029, provides state capital funding to nonprofit arts organizations with operating budgets under $3 million for projects that create or improve accessible arts facilities; individual awards range from $50,000 up to the $500,000 cap Annmarie received. The Clay Studio is currently housed in a converted two-car garage, where staff have stretched a limited footprint to offer classes in hand building, wheel throwing, and glazing despite persistent capacity constraints.
The expansion is the first project to move forward under Annmarie’s broader Long-Range Expansion Plan, adopted by the organization’s boards in June 2024. That plan envisions a new Waterfront Visitor Center, kayak and canoe launch facilities, expanded trails and native plant beds, additional sculpture sites, a green parking field, more classroom space, and a future Nature Center across Annmarie’s 30-acre campus — improvements organizers say will take years, if not decades, to fully realize. The Clay Studio was identified as an early priority specifically because demand had already outstripped what the current space could support.
“When we began developing our Long-Range Expansion Plan, the Clay Studio emerged again and again as a priority for our community, and as we embrace the benefits of wellness programming and social prescribing, Annmarie is proud to be on the cutting edge of building a healthy society in our community,” said Stacey Hann-Ruff, director of Annmarie Garden. Social prescribing — an approach that connects people to non-medical, community-based activities like art-making to support health and well-being — is expected to be a focus of new programming the larger studio will make possible. “We heard from students, teachers, members, volunteers, and area residents who wanted greater access to clay programs,” Hann-Ruff said. “Their enthusiasm helped shape this project.”
Jaimie Jeffrey, Annmarie’s deputy director and curator of education, is leading design efforts alongside a group staff have dubbed the “Clay Studio Dream Team” — a mix of Annmarie personnel and prominent Southern Maryland ceramic artists, including Ray Bogle, Leigh Dolesh, Kira Okshewsky, Krista Spalding, Geraldine Gancayco, Sasha Dulyachinda, Sarah Houde, Diana Manchak, Parran Collery, Alice Yutzy, Robyn Strayer, and Jennifer Adamson. Over the past six months, the group has toured other regional community clay studios to inform how the new space’s workflow and work zones should accommodate multiple classes and groups at once. “Our small but mighty Clay Studio has been ready to grow for quite some time, so this grant award from the Maryland State Arts Council is incredibly exciting,” Jeffrey said.
Bogle, a longtime Clay Studio faculty member, described the broader impact the space has had over two decades of teaching. “More than a place to take a pottery class or a walk, Annmarie is a place of activity, peace, healing, art, and people,” Bogle said. “Twenty years later, I still recognize the healing effect that the simple act of creating something with clay can have on one’s life.”
Construction on the new Clay Studio is expected to take shape over the next two years, with a projected start date to be announced early next year. The grant follows another recent milestone for Annmarie, which was named one of nine sites nationwide this spring for the Smithsonian-affiliated Artful Movement initiative, an education program pairing museum-based art experiences with social-emotional learning.
