Sculpting The Future

For the last few years, Jane Kim has been among the many Raleigh community members to regularly use and enjoy the clay studio at NC State’s Crafts Center. Kim moved to Raleigh in 2019, and the studio was a great way for her to connect with the arts in her new community.

Generous contributions like Jane and Stephen’s not only provide financial support but also demonstrate a deep commitment to the success and vitality of the arts program.

Over time, Jane and her husband Stephen were inspired to provide annual philanthropic support of the Crafts Center enhancement fund in grateful recognition of Jane’s rich experience in the clay studio. The family recently worked with NC State on a more strategic gift to advance the clay studio’s top priorities. The gift’s purpose is twofold: helping the studio and honoring Jane’s mother, CJ Kim, who has always strongly advocated education and the arts.

“Generous contributions like Jane and Stephen’s not only provide financial support but also demonstrate a deep commitment to the success and vitality of the arts program,” said Carol Fountain Nix, the Crafts Center’s director. “Their support further underscores the importance of nurturing creativity and artistic expression within the university community.”

Thus, the family created the CJ Kim Clay Studio Excellence Fund to help the studio grow and meet its current and future goals.

“My mother has always deeply cared for and encouraged students,” Jane Kim said. “Throughout her life she also appreciated and generously supported the performing and visual arts. So I thought she would be particularly pleased with my involvement in the Crafts Center. This was just up her alley.”

Blake Kennedy, the clay studio’s manager, expressed his gratitude for the support of the clay studio through this gift honoring CJ Kim.

“It is extremely impactful anytime someone wants to honor another by donating funds towards an education unit,” Kennedy said. “When someone feels strongly enough about what is happening in that place that they want to support its growth and success, that is a big deal.”

Kennedy explained that, since starting at NC State in 2022, he’s worked to continuously improve the clay studio’s accessibility. He said those improvements will likely be some of the first uses for the CJ Kim fund.

Some of these improvements could include adjusting the heights of the counters in the glazing and glaze storage areas so that people who need to sit down to work with the glaze buckets can do so, and creating more comfortable work areas throughout the studio.

“I think accessibility is a wide net,” Kennedy said. “There are improvements we can make that will help our space be easier to use and more accessible for a larger number of people. We also have to think about designing sustainable workspaces for the users over time. Ergonomics is an important part of that, creating spaces and systems within those spaces that will help people successfully complete their work without negatively impacting them physically.”

Kim said that some of her favorite parts of working in the clay studio have been forging connections with other community members, NC State professors and students, and the artistic inspiration that arises from arises from this lively community.

Now, this fund to help the studio grow and improve will be part of her mother’s legacy. 

“It will just please my mother enormously to know that students are being blessed with wonderful opportunities here. My mother’s lifetime of supporting artists and advocating for students will carry on to the next generation. I think that means a lot.”