Art Faculty Exhibition - Delta College

The Horton Art Gallery presents the 17th Annual Visions In Clay Exhibition, August 27 – October 2, 2026. The Gallery Opening Reception will be held Thursday, August 27, from 5:00 to 7:00pm. Admission to the Gallery exhibition, events and opening reception are free and open to the public.

Exhibition Events

Curator's Talk with Cynthia de Bos
Director of Collections and Archives
Artists’ Legacy Foundation
August 27, 2026 12:30pm
Delta College Campesino Forum (FORM 107)

Reception & Awards Presentation
with Cynthia de Bos, Exhibition Juror
August 27, 5:00–7:00pm

Exhibition & Events are Free & Open to the Public

Gallery Exhibition Hours
Monday – Thursday • 11:00am–5:30pm
Friday • 11:00am–1:00pm
Saturday: August 29 • 11:00am–3:00pm
Closed: September 7 & 25, 2026

Gallery Tours by appointment: Monday – Friday
Contact: jan.marlese@deltacollege.edu

Visions In Clay was founded by the San Joaquin Potters Guild in 2002–2007 and turned over to the Horton Gallery in 2010 to continue presenting the ceramics-based exhibition. Visions In Clay is the largest exhibition of ceramic works in San Joaquin Valley.

Cynthia de Bos, Director of Collections and Archives at the Artists’ Legacy Foundation, is this year’s guest juror, selecting the artwork and awards for the exhibition. The awards are given for a body of work in three award categories (Best of Show $800, 2nd Place $600, 3rd Place $400) sponsored by the Horton Gallery Foundation, and the San Joaquin Potters Guild sponsors a $300 Founders Award each year. The awards will be announced and presented by de Bos at the opening reception on Thursday, August 27 at 5:30pm.

This year’s exhibit features 39 works by 36 artists from around the country, including Delta College Alumni students, Hira Hanif, Mia Hill, and Tyler Mickschl.

Of special interest this year is the additional presentation of ceramic artwork by Viola Frey (1933-2004). Frey is an Alum Emeritus of San Joaquin Delta College (1951-1953) where she took her first ceramics class with Professor Bruce Duke. After two years at Delta College, she transferred to California College of the Arts and Crafts, Oakland, where she studied ceramics and majored in painting, which Frey integrated to

create a barrier-breaking artistic practice in the ceramic arts. www.violafrey.org

Exhibition Juror

Cynthia de Bos is the Director of Collections and Archives at Artists’ Legacy Foundation, which stewards the Viola Frey estate and manages the Viola Frey Archives. https://artistslegacyfoundation.org (collapse text)

De Bos holds a B.A. in Art History from Sonoma State University and a M.A. in Museum Studies, with emphasis in Collections Management from San Francisco State University. Since 2009, she’s has held positions at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and The Jay DeFeo Foundation, among others.

Since joining the Foundation in 2013, de Bos has organized and expanded the papers, photographic materials, and digital assets in the Viola Frey Archives, as well as overseen exhibitions, research and publications, and public programming. De Bos is the co-editor and a contributor to Frey’s first monograph, Viola Frey: Artist’s Mind/Studio/World (2024), which is on display at Visions In Clay, along with several of Frey’s work from the Archives.

https://artistslegacyfoundation.org

Juror Statement

Art making and education in Ceramics has been a long-standing tradition of San Joaquin Delta College, underscored by the annual Visions In Clay juried ceramics exhibition. collapse text I am privileged to be the juror for this year’s ceramics presentation. Thank you to all artists who submitted work to be considered in the blind selection - a wide range that made choosing this year’s artworks particularly difficult.

Because of the diverse pool of artworks, I considered Viola Frey’s own reasoning for using clay as an artistic medium: layered meaning, elements of play (that to me) reveal the artist, and work that may draw more questions than provide answers. While skill is important when using clay successfully, I chose to focus primarily on these ideas rather than refined technique.

Within this year’s selection, themes emerged which include the abstract, the figurative, and the functional. Some works provide clues to storytelling, elicit feeling, or beg to be touched. I viewed a digital image of each individual work multiple times, identified recurring themes, and used these themes to make the difficult choice of narrowing down the selection. It is my hope that the works presented in this year’s Visions in Clay also engage other viewers in the same manner. Congratulations to the artists who were selected for the exhibition!

The inclusion of Viola Frey’s ceramic sculptures to be shown alongside this year’s Visions In Clay selection is a true honor. Frey’s devotion to clay began as a young student attending Stockton Delta College (now SJDC) in the 1950s, and paved way for her to pursue clay’s artistic possibilities for the duration of her life. Her curiosity, determination, and courage lead to changes in ceramics education and artistic expression using clay as we know it today. It seems only fitting that her work is presented to a new generation of students at the college where her interest began.

A special thank you to Jan Marlese and the team at LH Horton Jr. Gallery, as well as the San Joaquin Potters Guild for their support of ceramic artists and the Visions In Clay annual exhibition!

— Cynthia de Bos