Formation: NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) 59th Annual Conference

By Andrea Vinkovic

Earlier this year Emma and I attended NCECA’s (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) 59th Annual Conference, Formation, in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was our first attendance at NCECA and we were excited to experience everything that NCECA and Salt Lake City had to offer.

Salt Lake City is nestled in a valley, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It greeted us with a warm sunny day and streets full of blooming trees and flowering tulips and daffodils. We stayed in an apartment walking distance to the convention centre, and we were pleased to see (and visit) many neighbourhood cafes, eateries and bars on our daily walk to and from the conference.

The conference was attended by over 4,000 delegates and when you add the speakers, invited artists, trade hall booths, staff and volunteers, there was easily six thousand people gathered in the convention centre. The Trade Hall was the main buzz of activity offering and promoting products, tools, schools, residencies and ceramics for sale, as well as hosting the exhibition of this year’s award-winning emerging artists. I did not expect so many demos to be held in the Trade Hall and I wish I could have found more information about those demos ahead of time so I could strategically plan and divide my time better. Trade Hall demos were organized by stall holders and were very limited in space, so the popular ones created big congestions.

Official demos were the opposite – held in the large auditoriums with several cameras projecting the close up view of the makers hands onto the large screens, and several stationary microphones that delegates could walk to and ask the questions of the artists. Given the size of the crowds, it worked very well.

The big difference (apart from the sheer size) between this conference and the ones I attended in Australia was the very different concept of the Keynote address. It was delivered in the evening on the first day, and it was a conversation between artist, activist, and New York Times bestselling author Suleika Jaouad and professor Kim Dickey, exploring the intersection of art, writing, and health. To my surprise, ceramic was not part of that conversation.

Artist talks, lectures, demos and exhibitions were great, inspirational and memorable and I would like to share a few images of personal highlights.

I am very happy that we stayed few extra days to explore the Salt Lake City, museum, history and the Salt Lake, and were rewarded by a beautiful snow fall that briefly covered everything in the white blankets. What a treat!

Our attendance to the conference was made possible by the Culture and Arts grant by the department of LGSCI.