NCECA

go see what's happening in Tampa March 30-April 2...

I haven't begun to search for the Tampa sites which NCECA will bring out...their shuttle busses are going far and wide...and I'm not on a bus, I'm in my car. I may not go as far as Gainesville. I'll try to take pictures...you know me!  I dare say North Carolina will be a bit lighter this week because so many potters are in Florida!

National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts
here's their link
http://www.nceca.net/

and in case you don't want to go there...here are some basics...

THEME:  Tidal Forces: The Next Wave

Exhibitions

Exhibitions are the bridge between ceramic makers and the viewing public. This vital aspect of our organization and annual conference speaks to our mission of advancing the ceramic arts and educating our communities through dynamic personal interaction with ceramics in exhibitions that encompass the full spectrum of ceramic art. To further increase public awareness and appreciation of the ceramic arts, as well as instigate critical investigation and dialogue, NCECA sponsors two exhibitions in conjunction with each annual conference and helps place dozens of concurrent independent exhibitions featuring ceramics in the conference host community.

Some of the places of interest to me are...

St. Ptersburg, FL...

Eckerd College, New Cobb Gallery, 4200 54th Ave S, 727-864-8340
·       EC @ NCECA, Brian Ransom, Bede Clarke, Stanton Hunter, Joy Brown, Casey McDonough, Mary Law, Jere Lykins, Susan Demay, Robert Hodgell, Ian Meares, John Eckert, Scott Ross, Tai Rogers, Jessica Wilson, Annette Sidner, Tom Judge, Nick Schwartz, Melinda Marino, Alix Knipe, Matt Schiemann, Adam Yungbluth, and more.  Featuring ceramics by alumni, as well as past and current faculty of Eckerd College.  Curated by Arthur Skinner.  Mar 6-Apr 8.  Tue-Sat 10:30am-4:30pm.  Reception Mar 31, 6:30-9:30pm

St. Pete Beach

Nancy Markoe Gallery, 3112 Pass-a-Grille Way, 727-360-0729historic house – please call in advance
·       The Shoulders We Stand On, Virginia Ainslie, JoAnn Axford, Antoinette Badenhorst, John Baymore, John Beckelman, Sandra Blain, Judy Bolef Miller, David Bolton, Andrea Bottelli, Maureen Burns-Bowie, Joan Carcia, Bowie Croisant, Susan Curry, Joan d'Arcambal, Barbara Davis, Scott Dooley, Bette Drake, Laila Farcas-lonescu, Dawn Ferguson, Roberta Griffith, Martha Grover, Vicky Hansen, Marian Heintz, Pamela Herring, Jonathan Kaplan, Jan Kolenda, Justin Lambert, Marta Matray, Joan Matsusaki, Dan Molyneux, Judith Motzkin, Hank Murrow, Joy Elaine Praznik, Catherine Rehbein, Carol Rissman, Renee Rouillier, Donna Rozman, Barbara Schwartz, Sam Scott, Amy Smith, Dinah Snipes Steveni, Rimas VisGirda, Sumi von Dassow, Scott Ziegler, Cristin Zimmer, Eliza Wang.  Potters Council celebrates the community with a show of members' work and will pay tribute to our roots, the significant influences that shape us and guide our work in clay.  We are creative heirs standing on the shoulders of giants.  We cannot help but reference and renew their ideas in our own work.  These distinctive inspirations become the touchstones of our best original efforts.  We do not seek copies of our roots, but works, which honor them with fresh, innovative interpretations.  Curated by Bill Jones
·       Sages of Clay, Cynthia Bringle and Sandra McKenzie Schmidtt.  Works that deeply touch and speak to people.  Throughout their careers, these artists have also been inspirational guides to countless artists who wish to live a life in clay.  Curated by Nancy Markoe
Above Shows:  Mar 28-Apr 15.  Mon-Sat 10am-6pm; Sun 12-6pm.  Reception Apr 1, 5:30-8:30pm

St. Pete Clay Company

Also in St. Petersburg, FL is a wonderful site where clay is worked and sold, and a Highwater Clay store is also housed.  (For those of us around Asheville, it is much smaller than the store we are used to, but still a great source for clay supplies)

http://www.stpeteclay.com/events.html

45th Annual NCECA Conference Tampa/St. Pete
March 28th - April 2nd, 2011 
St. Pete Clay Co. says..."We are fortunate to have NCECA in our city this year.  During this
time we will be hosting many shows in conjunction with the Morean
Arts Center for Clay and Highwater Clays.  NCECA is the annual
clay conference where thousands of artists, educators and students
gather to share ideas, have discussions and view art by contemporary ceramic artists. 
Because ceramics is such a community based field of art it is a good opportunity to bring
ceramic artists together. The St. Petersburg Clay Company will be open thoughout NCECA.Train Station Reception Night
March 31st, 2011
 "We will be hosting a reception for the many shows that are being
held in the Train Station in conjunction with  the Morean Arts
Center for Clay and Highwater Clays. 

Process not product

When I was in counseling school, immediately after getting that great and seeminly useless BFA in ceramics, trying to figure a way to make a living and share the glorious therapeutic benefits of creative art...I learned that the process was often more important than the product.

Art therapy was what it was called.

So I geared my Masters and Specialist in Counselor Education toward that...in a University which didn't have anything dealing with Art Therapy...a field which actually was beginning to be recognized in therapeutic circles...in which licensing criteria were just being defined..  So I designed the degree that didn't exist, a kind of independent study, interdepartmental thing.  I had Art Education classes that fit perfectly, as well as the Counselor Ed. classes that were required.  So a 2 year graduate degree (full time) became a 3 year degree for me.

And was it marketable?  Nope, not at all.

I did counseling.  I seldom did a thing that had to do with the process of creating art.  And many of my counseling jobs were not that at all.  For almost 2 years I helped organize and deliver substance abuse prevention training to public school faculty and staff in a North Carolina county.

I am not complaining, really.  Well, not much. 

There wasn't any one else deciding what I was doing with my life.

The Art School dean told me that I wouldn't be getting a job with that BFA.  The counseling advisor said I'd have to work my way up the ladder. 

I sure didn't intend to talk about this when I started writing today...
but it's about process, so let's see where it next goes.

Yes I did have steady work for the last 15 years of my career.  But I switched from counseling to doing Activities Director work with senior citizens.  It was certainly more enjoyable.  Did I do much with that dream vocation "art therapy" finally?  Nope.

I taught a few people how to do watercolors.  Did they wish to examine their painting and discuss their feelings about it?  Nope.  These were senior citizens.  They had feelings, but they shared them just with their best friends, or nobody at all.  They didn't come to a class in order to do "group work."

I led a couple of one-day workshops on making Mandalas, where people did share what their drawings represented to them...but they were the "sharing caring" type people already.

So I've really never felt that art therapy happened for me, career wise.

However, I've nudged it along in more casual ways in the community pottery studio. (The other teachers and assistants in the local studio do most of this process).   Much as working in ceramics offered me a sense of personal centering, calming, and perhaps a meditation, I've seen others arrive at these same places.  I've seen how encouragement and praise move a discouraged individual into a deep sense of worth, a self-pride that means as much as any counselor working to aid in self-esteem development.

A product in clay may be the medium for this self-development, but the end result isn't what the pot looks like.  Actually there's a big jump that must occur when the pot is fired and comes out looking like something the cat dragged in, instead of the imagined beautiful art.  This jump from fantasy to reality can usually be smoothed with lots of reasoned and rational soothing support.  Some people never make it...and return to more certain media like acrylic painting.

So the end result when you look at the art therapy viewpoint, is how a person adjusts to disappointment with a fired object that doesn't meet expectations...as well as the hours of creativity which gave personal satisfaction to the individual (a process).  Going home each day with this feeling is a healing of sorts...from whatever wound that person may have had in the outside world.

Some of the talking in the studio may bring out these events from a person's life.  Sometimes the topics are never heard.  But there is a camaraderie which begins slowly, gently, and eventually becomes intimate between the regular studio attendees.  It's like a "group."

Back in Black Mountain

OK, for me, working close to home in a community studio is good.  I went in the BMCA studio yesterday, and wanted to make a fruit bowl.  I did it.

For the past 2 weeks I've had small sculptures on the table in my work area (living room cause my studio space is too cold) but have not finished anything I've started.

I wake up in the middle of the night, and think how I want to finish something.  Then when I get up in the morning, there's no incentive to actually sit down at the table and do it.

Throw a fruit bowl?  Easy breezy.

So I've found that a community is important for me.  Isolation is more of a place to rest.  I don't work easily and creatively here.  Work is better when I have the time limit, by knowing the studio is only available during these hours.  Isn't that weird?  I have a residue of the lifetime of punching in and out at work, where the rest of the day was mine to do the necessary life support activities and have fun.  At least that's how I find myself today.

But the table is still here in the living room, and there are no studio hours today.  So perhaps...I'll let you know when I do.

Clay Club is an interesting mix.  I may go to their meeting up in Burnsville next Wed...if there's not bad weather.  I'm interested, because it's made of "professionals and serious potters".  But I'm also skeptical that all these serious potters will not think of me as one...after all, I don't have the self-discipline to work daily in my own living room, nor do I do production work like most of them do.

My life as a ceramic artist is to create sculptures and functional wares that speak to the heart of another being.  Between the experiencing of shape, color, pattern, texture and tactile feeling there is perhaps a smile of recognition.  When a piece is functional, it should take the smile a step further, to satisfaction that the purpose for which it was intended is well fullfilled.  Clay is my chosen medium because it has that alchemy, the almost miraculous shifting from mud to rock and glass.  Ceramics offer three dimensions that meet us in the fourth dimension, the time we spend with them.  I most enjoy seeing people picking up my wares to have a deeper knowledge of what is actually there, what I am saying to them.

Whow, I just wrote an artist statement.  Funny how it came out when I wasn't thinking about it!