written By Megin Potter  |  Photos provided

[From the 2025 Holiday Magazine]

A new specialty ceramics shop features functional and sculptural art from a collective, pouring their skills and souls into the vision.

For fourteen years, the Saratoga Clay Arts Center (SCAC) has been educating anyone interested in clay through classes and workshops. They provide open studio space and showcase work at the Schacht Gallery in Schuylerville, NY.

Vessel by Saratoga Clay Arts Center, a new shop downtown at 80 Henry Street in Saratoga Springs, continues their tradition of learning about, making, and sharing ceramics.

Capturing the uniqueness of the moment it was formed and the increasingly rare artists’ touch, each piece here, from modern to minimalist, ornate to earthy, explores the connection of material to process. Every mug, vase, dish, planter, candle holder, and sculpture has one-of-a-kind character and a story shared through its surface.

“You’re one step closer to the art when you can hold it,” said Vessel and SCAC founder Jill Fishon-Kovachick. She is a 1981 Skidmore graduate who taught adult education classes there for 17 years while also pursuing her own artistic vision with conceptual pieces like those on display in the Saratoga Hospital Center for Wound Healing & Hyperbaric Medicine.

Vessel is currently showing the diverse work of 56 artists, both local and from around the country, chosen for their originality, professional experience, talent, and exposure. This quality work, sold on consignment, includes sophisticated pieces by Skidmore’s Associate Professor of Ceramics, Matt Wilt; those with environmental appeal by Indiana artist Justin Rothshank; and ones sold to benefit an elephant sanctuary by Randi Martin Kish, among others. Every piece includes a short artist bio and a QR code with a link to the SCAC website where you can shop the entire inventory and a different artist is promoted each week. Many of the artists, like local full-time potter Wayne Smith, work on commission, so you can request matching sets, large specialty jars, personalized urns, and more.

Capturing the uniqueness of the moment it was formed and the increasingly rare artists’ touch, each piece here, from modern to minimalist, ornate to earthy, explores the connection of material to process. Every mug, vase, dish, planter, candle holder, and sculpture has one-of-a-kind character and a story shared through its surface.

“The educational value of a wide variety of ceramics is something Saratoga needs. There are not that many handmade contemporary art stores. The ceramics community is really broad, and we needed a hub of makers and creators in Saratoga,” said Vessel’s Studio Manager Daphne Allen Shaw, a former SCAC resident artist and ceramics teacher who also hosts Ceramics Sundays at Vessel, where artists are encouraged to gather and talk about their work.

In May, Vessel opened in a building that Fishon-Kovachick has owned since 1999. Since being renovated by Bonacio Construction, this well-lit downtown storefront has been home to a retail clothing store, an apothecary, and a bead shop. Now, new lighting, walls, paint, and floor finishes highlight custom built display cabinetry by local craftsman John Harris. On the showstopping focal wall, rows of black shelves stand out against the white background, framing each piece separately.

“There’s a really wonderful contrast between the white and the black that makes each piece pop within a linear concept. It’s an art piece in itself,” said Fishon-Kovachick.

For shop hours and more information, follow @vesselbyscac on Instagram and visit vesselbyscac.com