Logan Porto - BA in Fine Arts and Digital Animation
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WHO ARE WE AND WHY WE GET ITI grew up in a world full of screens. Games. iPads. Computers. YouTube. Discord. Infinite content. Infinite worlds. They were always available and never asked me to leave. I wasn’t lazy or uncreative. I was imagining constantly, Putting my creativity to work, just in the computer.
Almost everything I built lived inside a screen. And when the screen went dark, the world I had spent hours in disappeared. Nothing stayed. Nothing could be held. Nothing showed that I had been there, imagining, building, creating. |
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My mom grew up in a different kind of childhood. She played outside until the sun went down. She had big circles of friends, all different, all together. She built things, wandered, explored, got dirty, made mistakes, and learned by doing. Her world was physical, social, and shared. Watching my childhood unfold so differently scared her, not because she didn’t understand technology, but because she could feel something slipping away that she couldn’t quite name. My mom understands the quiet fears parents carry. The late-night wondering if this was normal. The guilt around screen time. The hope that their child will find something that connects them to the world again. I understand what it feels like to grow up now, to live inside digital spaces while still craving something real. |
Lorraine Porto - Mom & MBA
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For me, imagination was never the problem. I had too much of it. What I was missing was a place to put it, a way to make it stay. Games were exciting and immersive, but they were also designed to keep me inside them. There was always another level, another quest, another reason not to stop. I could build whole worlds, but none of them were truly mine. When the screen went dark, I had nothing to show for it.
When I found clay, something shifted. The worlds in my head no longer disappeared when I stepped away. I could feel them in my hands and turn imagination into something with weight, something that stayed. I was building, and that felt calmer, deeper, and more my own. That’s when we understood what kids really need. Not less imagination, not fewer interests, not more rules. They need spaces where their inner worlds are taken seriously and given room to exist in the real one. Clay Quest grew from that idea, not as just a class or a studio but as a place where creativity doesn’t vanish when the power goes off. A place where stories become objects and ideas become something you can hold. Together, we built Clay Quest to meet in the middle. To honor the world kids live in today while giving them a way to step out of it. To move imagination from screens to hands, from inside to outside, from fleeting to lasting.
Clay Quest exists because we lived this. And because we believe kids deserve more than worlds that disappear. They deserve worlds they can build, touch, and carry with them long after the screen goes dark. Warmest, Logan Porto, Founder, World Builder & Instructor |