For one week every year since 1966 (except in 2020), the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) descends on an unassuming city across the country with all things ceramic!

It has changed a lot since my first NCECA experience in 1992 in Philadelphia which solidified a life revolving around clay for me. One thing that has not changed is the tribes of mud-people who love attending as much as possible. It's literally a place where you can walk up to nearly anyone and totally geek out about clay, glazes, tools, and techniques.

This year, I decided to 'give back' as much as possible as I've been fortunate enough to attend a bunch of conferences through the years. So, I went as an NCECA volunteer. I thought it might be helpful to recap my volunteer experience and everything I did and saw this year - if for no other reason than to have a little diary for myself. I'll share it though for those who might want to live vicariously through my travels.

My husband and I are known to travel a lot - and suck the marrow out of life - so here goes...

Ming wasn't originally going to come with me, but leading up to NCECA this year there were a lot of TSA and other political things happening as well as several flight near-misses that totally freaked me out - so we drove and he and the pooch came along. We headed out to Michigan ahead of NCECA in order to meet up with a friend from college. 

Fittingly - I met this particular friend in her first pottery class! In fact, I was in Ceramics II at that point and she was in Ceramics I when one of our graded projects decided to fuse together in the kiln and was handed-in together for independent grades in separate classes. It certainly fused our friendship as well!

Within a day of being in Michigan, she had us hunting 'Petoskey' stones on the still very frozen and snow covered shores of Lake Michigan as well as driving up to the UP and back in a day. We don't do anything 'light'. We also took a day trip over to Schaller Gallery where we got a preview of ceramic delights ahead of NCECA. Including this piece by Michigan Ceramicist, Elliott Kaiser that I couldn't leave behind!

We got to Detroit the Tuesday ahead of the start of NCECA and were able to catch one of the 80+ sanctioned exhibitions taking place throughout Detroit this year titled "Breeze Over The Lakes" at the Detroit Public Library curated by Keiko Nakajima featuring ceramic artists from Japan and the USA all inspired by Shigaraki ware.

Day 1 - Wednesday morning - I headed first right to the cup sale to drop off my cup. All proceeds of the cup sale go to benefit NCECA programming and it is an annual testament to the giving nature of our craft. Then over to the resource hall where I was captured by "The Love Project" before heading to the NCECA Green Task Force display to say hello to some GTF friends and volunteer for a bit. This year the Green Task force had two presentations focusing on using waste as a resource: 
1. Kira Matos demonstrating how you can use eggs as a substitute for Calcium Carbonate in glazes.
2. Thora Finnsdottir and Signe Fensholt from Belgium with Project Ødeland - a study of waste as a ceramic resource.

Then in the afternoon I was off to "Made in Detroit - 100 Years In Clay" - which turned out to be a lovely display of ceramic work, the love story of Madeline Kaczmarczyk and Jerry Berta who met at Pewabic Pottery, and history of Rosie's Diner! I loved their story telling as much as their passion for clay and one another.

Next was an hour in the Resource Hall (where all the manufacturers with goodies are as well as tables with school and residency information) for a volunteer stint at the Cohorts.art table with Camille. Multiple hellos and hugs while telling people about the Cohorts program was a lovely break from the activity in the Hall.

Then enough time to zip around the Resource Hall to see if there are any new manufacturers I need to check out another day before running into Paul Blais from The Potter's Cast who I had the pleasure of doing an interview with last year!

Then off to the Green Task Force's Exhibition: "Materials: Volumetric Reduction" (loved Emma Logan's sense of humor in Snap!), the "Favours" exhibition featuring works across Canada (like this piece by Martina Lantin "Agglomerate"), the Opening Ceremonies and Randall Session, along with the Keynote by Hank Willis Thomas titled "Mind Your Heart".

And that was a wrap on Day 1 - back to the AirBnB to catchup with more clay people and enjoy the rest of the evening!

Day 2! Thursday began with our car abruptly deciding to not go over 20 mph on the highway leading into downtown Detroit! Gratefully we were in the motor city and my amazing husband was able to find a place to fix it pretty quickly. It made for a pretty drive into downtown away from the highways though! Dropped my gear in the Volunteer room and off to volunteer for the 60th Anniversary Exhibition "Shaping Clay to Shape the Future". This exhibition was also a sale benefitting NCECA from works donated by prior NCECA Demonstrating and Emerging Artists as well as a large donated teaching collection of works from Mary Jane Edwards in honor of NCECA's 60th Anniversary largely made by American functional potters with prestigious careers. 

My job for the 3 hour volunteer spot this day was to tell the up to 7,000 Ceramic Artist attendees at NCECA - not to touch the ceramics! It was pretty hilarious. Some people tried to convince me that it was okay - that they were a professional. Others were just oblivious to the many signs along the tables. Either way, I got to spend a bunch of time perusing some amazing pots while donating some time to NCECA.

When my shift ended, I had the chance to check out this years Emerging Artists: Bianca MacPherson, Maxwell Henderson, Irén Tete, Tommy Lomeli , Sunyoung Park, and Connor Czora. Seriously - emerging?! Imagine when they have emerged!

Then some time around the Poster Sessions which I think were new for this year. I liked seeing this component incorporated from students displaying their Ceramic Research efforts. And then off to peruse some of the Galleries. By this point - I missed out on a Chandra DeBuse piece which is on my list, but had the chance to say hello to her! 3D pieces by Bryan Czibesz, work by Julia Galloway, and Heesoo Lee who I met at Utilitarian Clay in 2025 all caught my eye in the ArtStream Gallery. This little strawberry by Colleen Toledano in the Clay Studio Philadelphia Gallery was another piece I loved. Her piece in an exhibition at the Richmond, VA NCECA a few years ago really stood out to me and I recently saw it again at the Everson in Syracuse, NY.

Off to the cup sale briefly before starting to attend some of the art meets tech presentations I was hoping to catch this year. First "The Mold Doctors" with Johnathan Kaplan - holy moly does he do some complex mold-making! Then to "Sustainable Reclaim Solutions in Studios" with the University of Cincinnati and Queen City Clay (who ironically I will be over to visit tomorrow since I'm writing this from Cincinnati!) If you have never visited the great city of Cincinnati - you should. And when you're there - definitely check out Queen City Clay. When I was in grad school in this part of the world - the precursor to Queen City Clay - "Annie's Mudpie Shop" was my clay home away from home in the late 90's! I've had the pleasure of working there on a few occasions through the years and it's dreamy!

Back to NCECA - The Pots on Wheels Protest Cups show was next for me. Then two more presentations - one on Anagama kiln 3D scans and the other about low fire Egyptian Paste...but the day was not over yet! Next up was an evening of volunteering at the "Fluid State of Land" and "NCECA 2026 Multicultural Fellowship" Gallery openings where I met some new clay friends who were also volunteers. There were so many amazing pieces in these two shows. My favorites were: this relief piece by Rose Schrieber "By Force or by Compact" which defied the senses with it's 3D effect. Seconded by Vanna Ramirez's "Symbiosis" because I'm totally into electrifying as many of my pieces as I can lately!

A late night bevy and chat with AirBnB friends then off to ceramic dreamland for...

Day 3 - Oh you thought that's it? If you've never been to NCECA it is hard to put into words the carnival of delights for the ceramic senses this conference offers each year. Following every year I typically have the "Ceramic Flu" - not really sick, but somewhat both inspired as well as not desiring anything else ceramic focused for at least a week! Friday, I hit the ground running - this is the FOMO's day (Fear of Missing Out) where you know the conference is ending soon and you have to get as much out of this day as is humanly possible. The three most important educational presentations for my NCECA year were in the morning - both Tech meets Clay related. The first about use of a 3D digital sculpting tool that I've been playing around with this year. The second about using laser tools to sinter clay and underglaze. Educational and entertaining - presenter Yaqi Cai explored laser cutting applications for ceramics; however, the content of this exploration was routed in text messages about fermenting things and life lessons from their father which was quite entertaining!

A brief interlude took me and my beloved to the Eastern Market section of Detroit for the 36th Annual Empty Bowls event - right where it started!

But back to the convention center quickly because I couldn't miss Mark Meier's presentation about Robotics and Clay! I'm a nerd technically and clay-wise so this was like sticking a kid in a candy store filled with puppies. Half the attendees left about 1/2 way through. I think perhaps there is a notion that robots making ceramics somehow might make really nice repeatable pots easy. Not the case. The technical know how in software development, 3d design, implementation, and robotics engineering - l loved it! I walked away from this presentation pondering how I might afford a $35,000 used robot!

It was good timing for that enthusiasm because next on my agenda was to head back to the 60th Anniversary Exhibition to help close out and pack-up this show and sale. Thankfully I had a little more time to peruse the pieces by prestigious potters like Chris Gustin, Betty Woodman, John Glick, Karen Karnes, Ruth Duckworth, Val Cushing, Michael Simon, Cynthia Bringle, and more. Perhaps it was the realization that NCECA 2026 was coming to an end and not wanting to let go. Maybe I was in a yellow mood this year? I'm not sure, but every time someone went near this one pot, I felt a sort of heartache that it might go home with them. So I broke down and brought this Bruce Dehnert piece home with me instead! And that was a wrap on NCECA Detroit.

Or was it?! The bonus hours of Gallery hopping on Friday night and Saturday Pewabic Pottery tour will be in my newsletter!

No one ever can do it all at any NCECA, this was my experience - would love to hear about yours!

Thanks for visiting my NCECA 2026 experience! Until next year - NCECA 2027 in Baltimore!