By RENEE PATRICK Cascade A&E Editor

The Clay Guild of the Cascades will be sponsoring the Wildfire Pottery Showcase Sale featuring over 20 of Oregon’s finest ceramic artists. The event, in its seventh year, will take place on the weekend of November 5-6 at the Highl Elementary School.
Wildfire is the Clay Guild’s biggest event of the year will feature continuous ceramic demonstrations in the event hall a children’s clay area for kids to play experiment with clay. The Guild will sponsor six $25 gift raffles with three drawings each day of the festival.
The members of the Clay Guild choose a non-profit each year to benefit from Wildfire. The Alyce Hatch Center has been chosen as the recipient of the sales from a selection of mugs donated by individual potters students. The Alyce Hatch Center is the home of the Deschutes County Early Intervention Program, the Early Childhood Special Education Program the Special Needs Resource Center. The programs provide services to families children who are at risk or have developmental delays.
The Clay Guild of the Cascades sponsors Wildfire to promote their passion for clay to further clay education in the community. Created in 2004, the Clay Guild formed with a collective desire to provide a network for local potters to share ideas, cost of materials education opportunities. They participate in charitable projects in the community work to promote the appreciation of h made pottery ceramics.
Helen Bommarito, a founding member of both the Clay Guild the Wildfire Show, shared that the Clay Guild was a wonderful resource as she was new to Bend shortly before the group formed, “I find that I love being a part of a local group that gets together shares ideas. When you work independently it’s kind of hard to connect with others, you don’t have daily impact with your peers, so we get together on a regular basis.”
Bommarito worked as a potter for nine years before concentrating on raising a family. Her reintroduction to ceramics 12 years ago was greatly aided by the community found in the Clay Guild. Bommarito was the 2010 winner in the functional pottery division of the Wildfire Show currently teaches at Art Station for Arts Central.
The Wildfire Showcase has evolved over the years the group looks to the Ceramic Showcase sponsored by the Oregon Potter’s Association in Portl as inspiration. The Ceramic Showcase is the country’s largest clay show in the country completely member run, an important aspect the Clay Guild has adopted. Every member is assigned a job Bommarito says the system has worked very well for them.
A selection of the Best of the Show are chosen by the artists themselves will be available for viewing in the gallery in the center of the show. Most pieces in the gallery will be available for sale.
www.clayguildofthecascades.com/events.htm, Saturday Nov 5, 10am-5pm, Sunday No. 6, 10am-4pm, Free admission parking, Highl Elementary School (Old Kenwood School), 701 NW Newport Ave., Bend. Contact: Eleanor Murphy, Wildfire Chair, emurphey@bendcable.com or David Warren, Clay Guild of the Cascades President, david@clayarchitexture.com.