NCECA: Ceramics education in Texas

I recently spent a week in Houston, TX for the 2013 annual NCECA meeting -  the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. This is not an exclusive society, explaining why ceramics single handedly kidnapped me in the middle of the night while I was innocently studying drawing. Rather, all mediums are embraced - the opening NCECA ceremony proves just this, it involved a performance artist as guest speaker, and a mime - who performed a tear jerker of a memoir on stage. This open love of creativity speaks how Ceramics willingly redefines itself into the future.

My own artistic attraction is to describe a personal alchemy. I like piles of tiny delicate objects and I like thinking about how to arrange these personal things into assemblages - like a primitive's curio cabinet, a natural science collection of experience instead of objective records. This aesthetic really reflects the nature collection I began as a small child exploring the woods in Germany -  the germ of my creativity was in finding feathers and creatures and childishly assigning my place within them. So heres a look at my favorite clay experiences from the Houston galleries...

My favorite of all time. Keys, hammers...hands...

Clay layered and fired multiple times to simulate peeling paint on wood.

The 'ingredient's list contained the word 'mum' - took me a second to realise it was the flower..

NCECA Biennial - A memorial to a pianist friend. The artist slip-cast rose twigs and inserted them into piano strings - the hanging chimes in the wind. Eloquent.