Working with clay can be a therapeutic and creative experience for anyone who needs an activity to pass the time.
People at The Dairy Barn Arts Center attended the Create to Donate events to learn how to mold and glaze bowls from clay, creating incredible dishes to be donated and used for Souper Bowls and several other community events.
The Dairy Barn, on 8000 Dairy Lane, provides Athens with creative endeavors and crafty activities while also supporting local businesses and charitable works. Dairy Barn raised $532,203.18 in revenue in 2023, and collects donations on a one-time, monthly or membership basis.
This is the second year the Dairy Barn has put on the Create to Donate event. The event is hosted by Chip Wagner, who attended the Dairy Barn Arts Center Summer Art Camp when they were younger.
Create to Donate is a two-hour free event for all ages and experience groups. Columbus Clay makes this experience possible for the community with its donations to the Dairy Barn Arts Center, donating clay and glazes for ceramics classes. The finished bowls are donated to local organizations and charities, such as the Athens Area Mediation Service for their Souper Bowl event, which was suspended in 2025 due to a lack of bowls, and the Amesville Elementary School for the Amesville Empty Bowls Event.
Rebekah Halbirt, the assistant education director and studio manager at Dairy Barn, said she knew Wagner when she was a teaching assistant at Ohio University. Once Halbirt started working at the Dairy Barn, Wagner became the summer art camp instructor and received the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio’s Growing Home fellowship. This fellowship is meant to ensure community members and leaders are committed to making Appalachian Ohio thrive.
“When Chip got that fellowship prize, they came to us and they were wondering what type of ceramic they could do,” Halbirt said. “We were already doing a Create to Donate event. And so it was kind of just second nature to have Chip go into that and be the instructor for all of those Create to Donate events, both the hand building of the bowls and the glazing processes.”
Halbirt said the Dairy Barn is very busy, and many people are interested in becoming a ceramic member artist. There is not enough space to serve everyone interested, and this event allows everyone to get their hands dirty and enjoy creating a bowl from a slab of clay.
During the class, Wagner walks participants through the process of creating a bowl from a pre-made slump mold. Instead of using a wheel to spin the clay to shape and mold, participants will shape the bowl with their hands to create a one-of-a-kind dish. The bowls are then fired in the kiln, and a separate class glazes them.
“It's kind of interesting, because you don't really know what the people who have created the bowl were thinking, but then when somebody new gets the bowl to glaze, it's kind of interesting to see what their interpretation of what the creative impetus was … to make a good bowl,” Halbirt said.
With this event, the Dairy Barn is trying to promote accessibility to the arts and provide people with the materials, space and community to express their creativity. Halbirt said having people visit for this free event might encourage them to come back and try another class or activity they have available.
Carol Dawson, an artist member at the Dairy Barn, goes to the Create to Donate events a few times a year and often creates ceramic and pottery pieces in the Dairy Barn studio. She said she recently made a coffee mug and glazed it to her liking. Dawson said she appreciates that the Dairy Barn gives back to the community.
“They’re very supportive of local artists, and they have developed a wonderful community of artists here that is very supportive of each other,” Dawson said.
Athens local Drea Renzelli said she visits the Dairy Barn every couple of months and enjoys doing anything involving ceramics.
“Everyone here is so supportive and helpful and kind, and I think they try really hard, if somebody's interested in something specific to try to find some way to bring that to us,” Renzelli said.
Halbirt said the Dairy Barn can be a safe place for people to let off steam creatively.
“I think that creative expression is something that is really kind of important,” Halbirt said. “If we can be a safe place for people to come and kind of express themselves or maybe even use the act of creativity as a way of processing things that they are seeing happening in our environment, in our political field, all over our country … that's what we are aiming to do, is to provide that place for people to come.”
