NCECA

Final Call for Clay Around Town Submissions! DEADLINE | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 (11:59PM/ET) (Please note time zone - late entries will not be accepted). Link in bio!

The Clay Around Town call for exhibitions features independently organized exhibitions presented within the Baltimore region during the NCECA conference. Listings may include exhibitions initiated by Baltimore-area venues, as well as artist- or curator-led projects that have secured a host venue prior to application. All exhibitions must adhere to NCECA’s Community Guidelines and Respectful Culture Policy.

Submission of Clay Around Town proposals is one of several benefits of membership in NCECA. Non-members may also submit Clay Around Town proposals; however, a $75 listing fee applies. The fee can be paid through the NCECA Online Store at the time of submission. Alternatively, non-members can purchase an NCECA Membership and enjoy a complimentary listing while supporting NCECA’s mission year-round.

Learn More and Submit a 2027 NCECA Clay Around Town Application using the link in our bio!

Over the past six weeks, we’ve had the pleasure of connecting with 2026 NCECA Emerging Artist Fellowship recipients Connor Czora (.czora), Maxwell Henderson (), Tommy Lomeli (), Bianca MacPherson (.ceramics), SunYoung Park (), and Irén Tété (.tete) through their Instagram Guest Hosting programming and Live Conversations!

Throughout the programming, each artist invited the NCECA community into their creative practice, sharing glimpses into their studios, artistic processes, inspirations, current work, and upcoming projects. The program culminated in two Instagram Live conversations, creating another opportunity to hear directly from the artists about their practices and artistic journeys.

A huge thank you to Connor, Maxwell, Tommy, Bianca, SunYoung, and Irén for generously sharing your work, ideas, and stories with the NCECA community!

Check out NCECA’s Instagram page to revisit the 2026 Emerging Artist guest posts and Instagram Live conversations.

Don't miss this year's International Sculpture Conference! Register using the link in our bio by September 22 to join the ISC in the Twin Cities.

The 32nd International Sculpture Conference will be held in Minnesota from October 22-25, 2026, with optional activities in the days before and after core programming. Immerse yourself in sculpture through exhibitions, learning opportunities, networking events, and visits to local art collections. Engage with critical ideas offered by panels covering a breadth of contemporary issues in sculpture and keynotes by Jean Shin, Angela Two Stars, and Dyani White Hawk. Connect with the sculpture community at parties hosted by Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center and Franconia Sculpture Park and spend an afternoon packed with art hosted by NE Sculpture | Gallery Factory in the Northeast Arts District.

Registration closes September 22. Learn more about the schedule, pricing, hotel rates, and more at www.sculpture.org/TwinCities2026 (link in bio).

It’s your girl B here to wrap up an incredible week (.ceramics)! I thought I’d share a little bit about what I’m up to now. I’m currently an Artist in Residence at Laguna Clay Company (), and it’s an absolute dream! I’m having a blast and working on a new body of work for a few upcoming exhibitions. You’ll have to follow along for more on that! (.ceramics). I’m also continuing to teach as a part-time lecturer at Cal State Long Beach and Cal Poly Pomona here in Southern California.

It’s been a whirlwind, as usual, but I wanted to take this last opportunity to shout out the incredible community of friends who have held me and helped me along this journey. I’m so thankful for this clay community and the wonderful people I’ve had the honor of knowing. I’ve met some of my best friends through this medium, and I’m endlessly humbled and grateful for the mentors, friends, and colleagues who have supported, encouraged, and uplifted me along the way. Thank you, NCECA, for this wonderful opportunity to connect with such a large and inspiring community. I wish you all a beautiful year, and I’ll see you in March!

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Photos: 1: Working in Laguna Studio

Photo 2: Workshop shot Photo credit

Photo 3: AMOCA farewell party for me

Photos 4- 9: Golden clay pals! .moreno

B here again for Day 4 (.ceramics) ! My mother instilled in me a passion for education, for understanding and communicating ideas in an accessible way. Following NCECA, I moved directly into a West Coast workshop tour, where I met so many incredible artists. My Abstracting Memory workshop shares my building techniques while inviting artists to transform their own relics through digital mirroring and abstraction. Whether teaching in an academic or studio setting, I learn through my own approach, but also through the people I meet and theirs.

My passion for making and teaching is also rooted in exploring how historical systems continue to shape our lives. My piece Counted, currently on view at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Fractured Foundations, looks at the racial reorganization of the U.S. Census between 1850 and 1930, when racial categories were repeatedly redefined, erased, and used to organize American life. By 1930, racial ambiguity had been administratively collapsed, and it was not until 2000 that Americans could again identify with more than one race on the U.S. Census.

The census is more than a record. It is an invisible structure that shapes visibility, belonging, access, and how we understand ourselves and one another. These are the questions I continue to think about as I consider how to sculpt an invisible structure, or make visible the unseen systems that shape our lives.

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Photos 1–7: Abstracting Memory West Coast Workshop Tour

Photos 8–9: Counted, currently on view at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in the Fractured Foundations exhibition, on view through November 29, 2026.

Hey NCECA! I’m Bianca MacPherson (.ceramics) What inspires me? In short, people. I think there has always been a part of me that feels like an outsider. That is who I make work for. Through my work, I have found people who, like me, use that feeling to keep searching, making, and finding where they belong. The gap I once felt between myself and the world became a space to recognize others with stories like mine, within history and in my present life.

Just as important as clay is to me, I believe the work means very little without the conversations and communities it brings together. I think of the work as an afterimage: it lives in our minds, while our conversations and invisible actions shape our society and history. How we build community, discuss difficult subjects, and make space for the imperfect and authentically beautiful parts of ourselves is what I hope to contribute to the broader art conversation. For me, the work must move beyond the object.

In June 2025, I co-organized a residency at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts () called Re-Mixed with my good friend Ash Campbell (), bringing Multiracial ceramic artists together from around the world. The residency was pivotal, creating a community that continues to grow and evolve. In February 2026 at UCLA, I spoke about the residency at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association conference alongside Erika Port. Inspired by the conference, I ran for Community Arts Representative on the Executive Board and was elected the night before my NCECA Emerging Artist talk. I now serve on the board as Community Arts Representative as we prepare for our 2028 conference in Minneapolis.

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Photos: 1-7. Re-Mixed Residency

Photos: 8-10. Erika and I speaking at the CMRSA conference at UCLA

Join the NCECA Green Learning Community this Friday, September 18 at 11:30 AM/ET with the NCECA Green Task Force! Pre-register using the link in our bio.

How can we be more sustainable in our selling and shipping practices? How about craft fairs? Let's talk cardboard cutting machines, repurposing shipping materials, etc.

This is an open forum, so please join us and share your knowledge, experiences, ideas, and suggestions! Everyone is welcome!

Pre-register using the link in our bio. We look forward to seeing you this Friday, September 18!

Welcome Back! I’m Bianca MacPherson (.ceramics) During my artist residency at AMOCA (), I conducted research at UCLA within the Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection, an archive of over 4,600 photographs documenting the civic and community life of 19th–20th century Black Los Angeles, collected by LAPL’s first African American librarian.

There, I encountered numerous unidentified sitters, including Black and Mixed-race families whose lives and contributions remain only partially recorded. I was particularly drawn to the photographic negatives, where figures seemed suspended between presence and disappearance.

As I looked closer, I began to see myself in their gaze and wondered how I might care for the forgotten. I wanted to honor these sitters while also acknowledging the gaps in their stories and in the archive itself. I digitally scanned and mirrored the negatives, using the archive itself as a kind of Rorschach test. From these mirrored images, I built ceramic forms directly referencing the figures, shapes, and gestures that emerged.

I think of these works as guardians and protectors for those caught in memory, but not remembered. I use clay to remember and rebuild. Its fluidity allows me to hold onto something while reframing how we understand our lives and the world around us. In clay, these fragments can stand solid for a little while longer.

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Photo 1: Sentinel Mother (Installation View), 2026, Glazed Ceramic, 25” x 15” x 12” Photo credit: AMOCA

Photo 2: The Standing One, 2026, Glazed Ceramic, 16” x 15” x 11” Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy of The Artist

Photo 3: Learning From the Night Bird, Progress 360

Photo 4: Learning From The Night Bird, 2026, Glazed Ceramic, 21” x 18.5” x 8.5” Photo credit: Photo Courtesy of The Artist

Photo 5: A Wish In The Grove, Progress 360 Photo 8: A Wish In The Grove, from AIR 2026 Group Exhibition COMPULSION at The American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona California. Glazed Ceramic, Black Sand, Metallic Pearls, 22” x 27.5” x 11.5”. Photo credit: AMOCA

Photo 6: Building Big Photo 10: Safe Keeper, 2026, Ceramic, 38” x 29” x 24” Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Artist

Hey NCECA! I’m Bianca MacPherson (.ceramics). I’m originally from Buffalo, New York, and currently based in Los Angeles, California. After graduate school, I relocated to Los Angeles in August 2025 for a year-long residency at the American Museum of Ceramic Art. Now that my residency has wrapped, I call this city home... for now!

I actually came to ceramics through photography. I originally majored in photography and, by total fluke, ended up in the ceramics department at Buffalo State University, studying under Robert Wood and Colleen Toledano. Colleen is still my mentor to this day. She encouraged my experimentation with photography processes alongside my ceramic work, something I never imagined would become such an important part of my practice. I cherish the community that has held me and the golden folks I’ve been lucky enough to love and learn from.

Today, I use both photography and ceramics simultaneously, allowing the two to inform one another. I think of my work as an active and changing archive. I investigate historical and personal archives, looking for missing information, overlooked histories, and untold stories amongst Black and Multiracial narratives. I sculpt and abstract these ideas into clay, using investigation and conversation to reconsider how history is understood and how we might change it in the now.

Throughout the week, I’ll be sharing a little bit of everything: my process, archives and inspirations, my teaching practice, tender moments from my life, and what’s coming up next for me. Excited to share this week with you, NCECA! 🫶🏾

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Photo 1: Me at the 2026 NCECA Volumes Conference, right before I gave my Emerging Artist talk

Photos 2-9: Installation Shots from TenderHead, Solo Exhibition, 2025 Zoller Gallery, University Park,

Photo 3: The Deity, 2024-2025, 44”x27”x19”, Glazed & Cold Finish Ceramic Ceramic

Photo 4: The Flattening, 2025, 55”x25”x25”, Glazed Ceramic Sculpture, Ceramic Table Legs, Race-Track Oval Glass Table Top. In perspective model Talaya Coffey Photo credit

Photo 5: Split Ends, 2025, 30”x17”x16.5”,Ceramic, Coil-Built, Glaze Photo credit

Photo 6: PLAY ME, 2025, Light Box Dimensions 50”x 50”, 36-12”x12” Plexiglass Game Pieces, Photo Scans Printed on Transparency, Hidden Camera. Photo credit

Photo 7: Split Ends II, 2025, 24”x13”x13.5”, Glazed Ceramic. Photo credit

Photos 8: Braids Too Tight, 2025, 21”x13”x17”, Glazed Ceramic. Photo Credit

Photo 9: celebrating at NCECA - Look how far we’ve come!