Thursday, April 26, 2018

International Sculpture Day in Yakima Valley

This Saturday is International Sculpture Day. Yakima Valley is celebrating with events in Yakima and Tieton. I am part of a show at Boxx Gallery in Tieton. The reception for Sculpting The Valley II is Saturday, April 27 from 11-4pm.

Resist Bulbs from the Nasty Woman show at Yakima Maker Space earlier this year


My resist bulbs will be on display and for sale individually at the Sculpting The Valley show show at Boxx Gallery, 616 Maple Street. The show runs through May 26 and is open Saturdays, 11-4pm.

Resist bulb


You can read about Yakima's International Sculpture Day events here. Besides the show at Boxx, there are other galleries with shows open in Tieton and a walking tour of downtown sculpture in Yakima at 4pm.

My work at the YVC DoVA Student & Faculty Exhibition

The YVC Department of Visual Arts Student and Faculty Exhibition is opens Tuesday, May 1 with a reception from 5-7pm. Awards are at 6pm. The exhibition is hosted at Larson Gallery on the Yakima Valley College campus.. The show features works in clay sculpture and functional pottery, drawing, painting, photography, and printmaking. The works in the show were made by students in Art and Photography classes at YVC during the Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2017 and the Winter of 2018. Faculty also have work on display.

One of my pieces at the Robert Graves Gallery

This week was the last week for the Northwest Artists Ceramics Invitational at the Robert Graves Gallery on the Wenatchee Valley College campus. The show was open April 2-26, a very short run. I feel like I just drove up to deliver the work.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

NCECA Pittsburgh Day 2: Blinc 20:20 with pictures of cats and cups

Thursday, my second full day at NCECA in Pittsburgh, was also the day of my second presentation, in Blinc 20:20, but I have to rewind to the previous day to give a full account of my experience with this presentation.

First Amendment Bulbs at Yakima Maker Space

On Wednesday morning I had a scheduled appointment in the Presenter Prep Room room to make sure the images in my Powerpoint were in order and played correctly. I was required to send in the Powerpoint about a month earlier, but I think this meeting was an opportunity to make small changes if needed. We were supposed to sign up online a few weeks before our scheduled meeting.

Resist Bulbs at Yakima Maker Space

On Thursday morning, about an hour before my meeting (because I worry), I checked in to the conference. I was a bit worried because the day before on the plane I had gotten an email from NCECA telling me my membership was cancelled. I found this email to surprising given that I never pay my membership in years I don't go to the conference and because part what I understood to be the agreement with NCECA is that in return for doing my presentation they would pay/waive my conference registration and membership. 

donated cups at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

When I went to check in, I told the woman I was presenting so she handed me a badge, stuck a presenter's ribbon on it and removed the membership book that comes with the bag. (The bag has a bunch of ads for shows and vendors, a booklet with information about the conference and presenters, and a smaller booklet with maps and a schedule.) I argued with the woman that I was a member, since NCECA was supposed to pay my membership. She gave me a booklet so I'd leave her alone, but it seemed odd. Later, the women leading the other Topical Networking session in the same room as me were surprised that I had managed to get a presenter ribbon, since they hadn't gotten that when they checked in. I assume the paid presenters for the fancier talks are treated differently.

Donated cup (by Katie Bosely) at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale.

Anyway, after checking in, I looked in the booklet for a listing for the Presenter Prep room, since I hadn't found it the day before in the NCECA app or in my email. When I couldn't find it, I went over to information. The student volunteer there didn't know anything about it, so she asked the older, more experienced volunteer who also didn't know anything about the room. Unfortunately the student really wanted to help and resisted my attempts to thank her for trying and just go look for it myself. After she looked in the booklet under vendors, exhibitions, maps, the schedule, and ads (I am not exaggerating), I finally extricated myself and just wandered around the convention center until I found it. The location was fairly central and easy to find if you were coming in from the official hotel, but I was staying in a different hotel and had come in from a direction.

donated cup (I didn't see a name) at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

Today, about a month after the conference, I was looking through my NCECA paperwork again and found the location of the Presenter Prep Room on the 2nd or 3rd page of one of my contracts under the 6th of 9 bullet points. I couldn't find the location in the email I had gotten from NCECA in Feb/March with the link to the sign-up tool, but I hadn't looked in the original contract. I should have read the contract more carefully, but it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to include it in the email or let the info booth people know. When I found the location on Thursday morning, I made sure to mention it to the info booth student.

I found the room number today!

The powerpoint I needed to discuss in the Presenter Prep Room was basically just slides and the titles and contact information NCECA requested, so I didn't have any changes to make. I got to the room early, spoke with the man who was in charge of our presentations, discussed my Powerpoint with him, and was done. He adjusted the timing so that the images would advance on their own (I learned a new thing in Powerpoint) and then he asked me if everything looked good. 



video of the Blinc 20:20 presentations from NCECA (mine is third)


As I may have mentioned in my last post, my anxiety was cranked up to the highest level and my confidence (and patience) were fairly low. I told him that the Powerpoint was what I intended to present, but that all the images looked terrible and I didn't like any of my work anymore. He was nice about it and told me I'd do fine, which I appreciated. I asked if there was anything else I needed to go, thanked him, then headed out. Sounds like the dullest story every, right?

If I had brought a kitten to Pittsburgh I would have been more patient.

But that afternoon, after my Topical Networking presentation, I got an e-mail from NCECA scolding me for not going to my required Presenter Prep appointment. This email included the location of the Presenter Prep Room--they probably thought I couldn't find it. On a regular day, like today, I might read this very short e-mail, realize that a mistake was made and it wasn't mine, and reply accordingly. Today, in fact, I went back to see how rude that email was and discovered that it is about two lines long and not particularly rude. And, to forgive myself a little for my subsequent overreaction, my reply e-mail simply stated that I went to that meeting and included the name of the man with whom I had met. 

donated cups at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

My overreaction, luckily, happened mostly in private. I started a second email--one I didn't send--revealing my real feelings at the time: I couldn't figure out if I was mad that they screwed up or mad that I probably didn't check-in correctly. I figured not checking in meant being put on a permanent blacklist of people banned from presenting at NCECA, meant I'd lost my opportunity to present this year, and probably everyone hates me. Through my anxiety I was able to see that I shouldn't send this email, so deleted it and went back to the hotel to complain to my friend Nina.

work by Brian Giniewski at a gallery in Pittsburgh

That evening I got a reply from NCECA stating "Sorry for bothering you. We yelled at [the man I met with] for not moving it over to the 'done pile.'" I'm not sure why they needed to yell at the guy, but obviously everything was fine. I can see now that I was being ridiculous, but I'm at home in the company of an adorable kitten, so a lot of things look better today.

This kitten is learning to edit blog posts; "add a picture of this kitten right here"

With all the minor but consistent communication issues that seem to be a defining feature of the NCECA organization and/or conference, it shouldn't have been a surprise that the technology didn't initially work as promised on Thursday morning. The Blinc 20:20 format is meant to be a series of short, fast presentations by a variety of speakers. When we applied the format wasn't entirely clear, but after we applied NCECA emailed asking if we wanted to present in the "Pecha Kucha" format or if we needed more time. I said I could do whatever, and never did get a response back, but apparently that meant I was doing the 20 slides each for 20 seconds format. In the meeting the day before my images were each put on a 20 second timer.

Glaze running and pooling over a textured bowl by Lindsay Scypta
Also in the meeting the day before I was told that I would have a presenter's view of my images and the audience would see just the slide itself. Had I included notes in the presenter view, I would be able to see them. Presenter view in Powerpoint is great, but it usually doesn't work on the PCs I use at school, so I'm out of the habit of using it. I was happy to learn that I would be able to see the upcoming slide so I didn't have to just remember what was coming next. Seeing the current and upcoming slide in front of me made the presentation easier and more comfortable than I had anticipated before I got to Pittsburgh.

donated cup at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

Based on all we now know about NCECA, I'm sure we all can guess what comes next. The presenters mostly arrived early and were ready to go. We were the first event in the room that morning, so we had time to chat and discuss the plans. We were shown where the presenter view would be (on a large monitor in the seating area in front of the raised speaker's stage). The presenters were seated in order of who would be presenting first, second, etc. I think we all assumed that the tech folks in the back were checking the tech at the same time as others were checking in with an preparing the speakers.

donated cup at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

But, of course, when the first speaker went up to talk, she discovered that the presenter view screen wasn't working at all. It was just a blank screen, for seven long minutes. The first presenter pointed this out, but the show was rolling and her time was ticking, so she gave her presentation while looking awkwardly at the main screen that was off the stage, on the other side of the room, and almost level with her position. It was clearly awkward, but she did fine. The rest of us fretted a bit about how awkward it would be for us. Everyone was patient with her, knowing she had some tech issues, but their patience might wear thin.

donated cups at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

After the first speaker finished, the NCECA folks stopped the program and fixed the tech before bringing the next speaker up. I was happy to be the third speaker since I knew the tech was fixed, didn't have to go on right after it was fixed, and also I didn't have to wait nervously through as many presentations. My friend Nina took some video of my presentation, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to watch myself speak (shh, don't tell her). NCECA also recorded the presentations and put them up on their YouTube Channel. In the NCECA video (embedded above), the view is just the slides, not the speakers themselves.

donated cups at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale
My presentation was fine. Not many people talked to me right afterwards, which was a bit of a disappointment, but several people stopped me throughout the rest of the day to thank me for leading my Topical Presentation or to mention this one. The one woman who sought me out right after the Blinc 20:20 wanted to scold me for going to an Indivisible meeting. I mentioned, at the start of my presentation, that I had tried to get involved in a number of ways and that was one I mentioned. I didn't mention that I hadn't continued to go after the first meeting (scheduling conflicts).
donated cup at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

The woman who didn't want me attending Indivisible meetings explained that I should be supporting existing activist groups led by women of color and that all the new groups started after 45 undermined the existing POC-led groups. Sigh. I didn't anticipate that as the salient feature of my presentation. The speaker immediately after me talked about race and the erasure of indigenous culture, which may have colored how my presentation was interpreted.

donated cup at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sals
The talks went really really fast. I knew a 7 minute presentation would be fast, since I had practiced it, but it felt much, much faster live in front of an audience. The name for the event, Blinc was apropos; it really did feel like a blink and it was over. The other presenters were mostly good, in fact only one really annoyed me at the time, but my annoy-o-meter was set a little higher than usual during the conference, so I may have enjoyed it another time. There were several talks that focused on processes. I particularly liked the work of the fifth speaker, Sarah Gross.

donated cup at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale
I was surprised at how differently all the speakers approached the presentation. I had images of my work, a general idea of what I wanted to say and no notes. Some of the presenters had cards with notes of what to say. One speaker had every word written out, had looked up how many words can be said in 20 seconds, and had edited her talk down to precisely fit, word for word, in the time frame.

donated cup at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

I was also surprised that one of the speakers hadn't gone to the Presenters Prep room meeting the day before and wanted to make changes that morning. That presenter either didn't know about, or had arranged to work outside of the 20 second per slide format. The presentation seemed to go fine, but it was surprising to me, given how much I had worried about following the rules and sticking to the exact requirements.

donated cup at the NCECA scholarship cup show and sale

Sunday, April 15, 2018

NCECA 2018 First Day: Topical Networking, Culture's Impact on a Studio Classroom, Shot Glass Exchange, and Anxiety

Work by C. J. Niehaus. The small plate in front was one of the first ceramic items I bought in Pittsburgh
Last month I went to the NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. I went this year because I was presenting twice at the conference. My first presentation was a Topical Networking session about students from different backgrounds working in a classroom studio and the challenges and opportunities that represents.

A main hallway in the convention center had windows overlooking the expo hall. The empty tables in the foreground are the college, university, and community studio tables, but not everyone had arrived on Wednesday.

My Topical Networking session was fairly well attended and the conversation was insightful and positive. The set up was strange, because the Conference organizers don't really communicate with the presenters. This first presentation was on Wednesday afternoon, before the keynote speaker so a lot of people weren't at the conference yet. The upshot was that they didn't provide microphones, didn't communicate essentially at all with the presenters, and booked two sessions at a time in the same space. It also means the stakes are fairly low. I figured if no one turned up, I could leave early.

I saw Brett Freund's work in my favorite show in Portland last year but didn't buy one then. I bought one this year. This work is slip cast and 3D printed.

I arrived on Tuesday because flying from Yakima to Pittsburgh takes all day (2 layovers both ways-- the return trip took 16 hours). Tuesday was the earliest I've ever arrived to an NCECA conference, though this was my tenth conference (I started coming in college). I had to check-in for my Thursday presentation in on Wednesday morning, then I had most of the day to check out shows and worry about my presentations.

The main part of the expo hall featured tool, wheel, kiln, and magazine vendors. I had some good discussions with the Bailey folks about my gas kiln and with the Potterbot folks about our 3D printer.

I devoted a significant amount of my time at the conference to worrying in general. This year's NCECA took place during YVC's finals week, so I had some online submissions and their accompanying questions happening while I was at the conference. Since I was presenting twice, I was able to worry about both presentations and the classes. I was also generally less excited about the other presentations at the conference, though that could have had to do more with my mood than the quality of what was offered.

Kyungmin Park's work sums up my attitude for much of the day.

Whether it was because of the stress of presenting, or finals, or the fact that I attended the conference last year, I found the expo hall and the galleries in the expo hall to be fairly boring and uninspiring. This sounds fairly hard, but on Wednesday, after checking-in for the next day's presentation and then doing some grading in the upstairs hallway, I walked through the expo hall telling myself "ugh, I don't care, I don't want to be here."

Gallery Spaces and Emerging Artists Spaces in the Expo Hall

The expo hall is the large room where all the tool vendors, magazine publishers, kiln and wheel companies, etc, show and sell their stuff. Usually I go through this space looking for posters for the YVC clay studio, buying (or just drooling over) tools I want for my studio or the school studio, and talking to people in the school or community studio booths. Last year I spend some time at the 3D printer booth and ended up asking YVC to buy us a printer (they did). 

My friend Nina in the Chinese classroom at the Cathedral of Learning on the University of Pittsburgh campus
The best thing about NCECA this year, hands-down, was that my friend Nina came with me. Nina isn't a potter or a ceramicist (her mom is), but she happened to have the week off, so she joined me in Pittsburgh where she proceeded to put up with my high anxiety level for two days and then we had lots of fun going to museums and seeing shows and hanging out with some of her wonderful friends in Pittsburgh. 

Walking around NCECA and Pittsburgh means a lot of steps

On Wednesday, after my morning check-in and before my afternoon presentation, I met up with Nina and we walked up to see some interesting spots she'd found, have some lunch, and experience the brisk and alternately sunny and snowy March weather. Nina had already been in Pittsburgh several hours before I arrived on Tuesday, so she had scoped out some of the interesting spots to walk near our hotel and the convention center. Incidentally, the spot she wanted to walk on Wednesday was also the spot hosting the main NCECA Invitational show. The show was really good, but I'll save my discussion of that show for a later post. 

I knew exactly what to expect for my Topical Networking session

My topical networking session was scheduled to happen in same room at the same time as another topical networking session, this one on Maker Spaces. I arrived 30-45 minutes early (anxiety) and found just two people in the room, the women who would be running the other session. They were expecting to meet someone from NCECA before the presentations, but I've been to enough of these conferences to guess we were on our own. The other women were also expecting to be the only ones in the room. I'd figured we'd be sharing a room, but was still a little disappointed that NCECA never actually communicated to the presenters that we were sharing a room, nor did they provide signage or even paper and markers for us to communicate where folks should go (without announcing it over and over again, that is). 

Sculpture "On Top?" by Travis Winters in the Ceramic Sculpture Culture: Unifying the Narrative Figure show in the conference center

The room was clearly oriented with a stage and rows and rows of interconnected front-facing seats. I put on my bossy pants and decided that I would set up my group in the back corner and they could have the front of the room. Since NCECA hadn't provided and I hadn't thought to bring any paper or markers to make a sign directing people where to go in the room, I just started announcing loudly that "Culture's Impact on a Classroom Studio" would be in the back and that people could start moving that way. Since people arrived intermittently, I announced this over, and over, and over, and over again.

"The Mountain" by Kevin Rohde in the Ceramic Sculpture Culture: Unifying the Narrative Figure show in the conference center

When I started announcing the split, I was halfway convinced that not a single person would stand up and head to the back with me, but I was relieved to find about half the people joined me. By the time the session was scheduled to start I had enough attendees to make me feel confident but not overwhelmed. I wasn't sure how to move the chairs since they were stuck together in a way more complicated than my nerves could identify, so I just grabbed one on the end and started walking. About five of the chairs came away with me and I started arranging them in a circle. 

I wasn't sure if this work from "Garden (Feast) of Paradise" was being installed or was intended as an interactive piece. Either way, it seemed like a map of NCECA's general organization and communication at the time I saw it.
Other people who arrived early helped set up the circle of chairs, and eventually someone less nervous than me figured out how the chairs were supposed to come apart. We arranged a nice intimate circle of chairs which then had to be expanded at least three times as more and more people came in. Near the scheduled start time, one woman volunteered to take over my intermittent announcements directing people to the right space in the room. She went to the door to direct people so she wouldn't have to be loud like me. By the time we started, we had a large oblong circle and a partial row behind the one side of the circle. There were probably about 40 people in my session and way more than that in the Maker's Space session. (but none of my people left early;-)

The "Garden (Feast) of Paradise" show was pretty neat. The work above is apparently by Dominique Ellis. I didn't come back to see the work later and I can't find a lot about it online, so I guess it will have to live in my mind as both unfinished and interactive.
The discussion went better than I worried it might and as well as I planned, plus there were some ideas that were new to me. The group was small enough that I was able to get everyone involved in the conversation, but big enough to bring in some varied perspectives. The group consisted of high school and community college teachers, students, people who teach in community studios, one person from a children's museum, as well as a few others who didn't quite fit in one category or the other.

The "Garden (Feast) of Paradise" show featured tableware, installation, and large scale sculptural vessels from Anat Shiftan, Sanam Emami, Dominique Ellis, Julia Galloway, Ibrahim Said , and Sarah Heitmeyer. At the time I thought the work of different artist was grouped together, but I researched a little while writing this post and found that I was wrong.

I came to the conversation with a focus on under-resourced students, specifically first generation college students, and students who grew up in poverty. Different assumptions about rules and behavior were the source of most of my conflicts in the school studio and the direct inspiration for proposing this talk. I also wanted to address students whose scarce resources meant they missed classes, because I had the most confidence in what I've done in the classroom to ease the challenges for these students. Others in our group seemed excited to talk about socio-economic challenges. The woman from the children's museum and another man from a community studio spoke about already reaching a fairly wealthy audience but wanting to expand to be more inclusive of lower income folks who weren't coming to the studio. 

Installation by Julia Galloway from "Garden (Feast) of Paradise."
One of the high school instructors brought up the trouble of students moving in and out of the school mid-year and mentioned that he had a new student just the week before. The students, who were all college or graduate school level and mostly seemed to be art education majors, brought up some interesting perspectives. I was really surprised by one student's input. Someone, I think it was a female teacher and will write it that way (but it could have been a man and it could have been a student), said that she identifies students who are more advanced and has them help demonstrate techniques or help other students. I also found this to be useful and was excited when my hand-building students last quarter started helping each other with the 3D Printer

Work by Ibrahim Said from "Garden (Feast) of Paradise." 
The idea of more advanced students helping beginners is something I've built into my course design, but the student who responded to this pointed out that how we encourage student to help other students makes a big difference. This student indicated that when she was in high school, being singled out to help a new students put her in a strange spot and made her feel uncomfortable both being praised and being separated from her peers. Instead, she suggested that the instructor should have quietly asked her to help a classmate without drawing attention to her in front of the whole class. I was, frankly, surprised by this because I've experienced conflict with students offering unsolicited help and annoying other students, but the major difference between my studio experience and this student's was age, this student was in high school and I have both high school age and much older students in my studio. It will certainly make me think about how age might impact how students feel in the studio.

Work by Ibrahim Said (both in the foreground and far background) from "Garden (Feast) of Paradise" at the convention center.  

As I said, I chose to begin the Topical Networking session with a focus on under-resourced students and student from poverty. I did not particularly want to lead a discussion about ethnic or religious culture, first because I didn't feel like the best spokesperson for this topic, and second, because I haven't seen that my classroom conflicts stem from ethnic differences so much as from a misunderstanding or lack of communication between my expectations and theirs. Though this might overlap with ethnic culture, my first reason holds. 

Detail of work by Ibrahim Said.

However, in the course of the discussion ethnicity and culture did come up. A number of people, especially the high school teachers, talked about ways they get their students thinking about expression in their work through writing. Students wrote 6-word stories or wrote a set of statements about their subject in the form of some set of questions K-12 teachers must be familiar with but I can't find online (I think it was a bunch of short lines that started with "I see... I feel... I know..." or something like that--if anyone knows, help me out). These were both shorter and longer writing exercises before, during and after they built their sculptures. Teachers talked about projects that focused on making portraits or sculpture of people and animals, science fiction or technology inspired designs out of clay, and more traditional vessels. One fascinating project involved asking students to define the word "vessel," encouraging more than a pottery-centric use of the word. Students then built a "vessel" based on those varied definitions. The results could get very personal, as the idea of a person as a vessel has some interesting connotations which students explored.

Work by Sarah Heitmeyer from "Garden (Feast) of Paradise" These pieces were my favorites in this show. The vessels tessellate upside down and right side up to make patterns like this magnetic tile toy my daughter used to love.
All of these ideas were flexible, allowed for expression, and encouraged students to think and plan before, and during the building process. They also allowed for students to integrate their own experience of culture without the teacher dictating how culture gets included. The discussion was robust right until the end of our time when the children's museum teacher summarized the assignment part of our discussion. She pointed out that many of the teachers in the group had talked about teaching technical clay skills while designing assignments that let the students direct the expression and the imagery. What she said was absolutely true, and the more I've thought about it, the more it seems like this pedagogical approach could summarize basically everything I do or want to do in the clay studio, including in functional pottery classes. 

Slightly different view of Sarah Heitmeyer's functional pottery/tile installation.

I felt really good about the session and stayed talking to a colleague until we had to leave because the next sessions were starting. For the rest of the evening and the next day I kept hearing complaints about how hard it was to hear in many of the sessions and why had NCECA put two presentations in one room. NCECA hadn't provided microphones for the Topical Networking sessions (or, like, any information or assistance) because fewer people attend Wednesdays. The record attendance at the conference this year, combined with the double-booked rooms and no mics made it hard to hear in some of the sessions. My group didn't appear to have a problem, which is partly due to our relatively small, partly due to me being loud, and perhaps partly due to the fact that our conversation was engaging. It might also have helped that we sat in a circle so people could see and hear each other. 

Really, these were pretty neat in concept and in execution. You should check out her website: https://www.sarahheitmeyerceramics.com

After the networking session I had one more scheduled activity on Wednesday. The Clay Buddies facebook group was hosting a "shot glass exchange."  All the buddies who wanted to participate were told to bring up to 5 shot glasses in separate small bags. We dropped them off in exchange for up to 5 tickets. The bags were grouped on the floor and we stood in line with our tickets until there were enough bags. Then we traded our tickets for bags of "shot glasses" from other buddies. The upshot (get it?) was that we each got up to 5 pieces from different "buddies".

My shot glasses in kids' party favor bags and Les' in a Jimmy John's bag
The exchange was well organized and lots of fun, though it appeared to be exhausting for the people running it. After people got their bags, they went to sit at the large round tables and opened up their prizes, talking with other buddies about the pieces and comparing what they got. I got a colorful and elegant shot glass, a fun textured "shot glass" that appeared to be a mug, and a shot glass with a carved foot stamped with NCECA 2018 on the side.

The shot glasses I traded for at the Clay Buddies event. The artists' names are somewhere under this pile of paper from NCECA on my desk.
To trade, I brought four shot glasses I made and one made by my community studio helper, Les. I got back four shot glasses and a mug with really interesting glazed texture. Les wasn't able to attend the conference, but I was texting him NCECA pictures and updates during the day and he kept me informed when he saw our shot glasses in other Clay Buddies' pictures. 

The "shot glass" mug from the Clay Buddies event. The artist's name is somewhere under this pile of paper from NCECA on my desk.
That evening, my friend Nina was running late after catching the wrong bus, so I had a delicious solo sushi dinner, next to the most obnoxious Pumpkin Spice Latte woman. Since Nina wasn't back yet, I decided to go to the opening keynote for the conference, which looked promising because it was about education and the arts. Unfortunately one first has to sit through all the NCECA folks congratulating each other on doing the conference. I was fairly disappointed in the keynote itself. The speaker was an educator/education teacher and improv actor who seemed to think she had an innovative idea about getting kids creatively involved in their education. Sadly no one got creatively involved in her powerpoint, but the larger issue was the lack of innovation in what she had to say.

The texture on this mug is great fun!
I was annoyed because she was talking about this program she runs where professional or amateur adult actors come into elementary schools, help kids write a play and then the actors perform it. The program sounds fine, but it isn't "new." Our elementary school brought in a musician who helped all the classes write songs, then he performed them for us. It was fun. It's a neat program, but it isn't new. She spoke as if her ideas were amazing and revolutionary! I was also annoyed because this wasn't much different from what a group of unpaid educators were discussing and advocating in my Topical Networking session, yet this lady was the (paid) keynote for the conference. 

The crowd on the second day (Thursday) of the conference was shocking compared to the day before. This picture is from the hallway looking down on the expo hall. I shared this hallway with less than half a dozen people at a time the day before.
I ended up leaving the keynote early to go find Nina. I was much happier leaving the talk than staying put, but part of my problem was nerves before my presentation the next day. (Though I suspect I would have been gently annoyed at the keynote without the nerves.) On Thursday morning I was scheduled to speak about my own artwork for less than 10 minutes, which somehow made me much, much more nervous than leading a discussion about teaching for an hour. Nina was exceedingly patient with me as I fretted about the talk and she helped me practice it after we got back to the hotel.

On of my images from my Thursday presentation on my own work.

One more note, I didn't have much imagery from my Topical Networking session or the keynote, so I included images from two shows that were taking place in the same hallway as my session. One was "Garden (Feast) of Paradisefeaturing work by Anat Shiftan, Sanam EmamiDominique EllisJulia GallowayIbrahim Said , and Sarah Heitmeyer. The other was "Ceramic Sculpture Culture: Unifying the Narrative Figure" featuring a variety of artists, but I shared work by Kevin Rohde and Travis Winters. I also shared work by C. J. Niehaus and Brett FreundAll my links should work (in the captions and this paragraph). Go check out these great artists and their other work.