NCECA part 1 (Bad Apps, Maps, and Gaps)

I just got back from NCECA, the annual conference for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts in Detroit. This week was YVC's spring break, so I have nearly a whole day to rest before classes start tomorrow. My mom met me in Detroit and attended the conference with me. We had lots of opportunity to talk about clay and teaching and the conference and her hometown (she grew up on the East side) while in Detroit, but now my mind is racing with more things I want to think about, so...blog writing!

Me and my mom in the hotel with a view of Detroit, Windsor, and the conference center

It was a good experience, despite the fact that there were some serious flaws, in my opinion, with the organization of the conference itself. Luckilly, the experience included lots of valuable stuff, like info on kilns and parts, new to me tools, inspiring work and exhibitions, and validation of some of my techniques and teaching approaches. I was disappointed, to varying degrees with the organization of the conference, and though I have lots that's good to think about, some of today's writing was me getting out some of that frustration with the organization and, especially, the app.

a small amount of my conference collection (including lots of posters for the studio)

I went to my first NCECA conference in Kansas City as a senior in college with my clay professor, John Beckleman, and other Coe students. The next year, I went to San Diego as an independent artist and prospective graduate student. I attended the conference all three years of graduate school (in Indianapolis, Baltimore, and Portland). After that I went less freqently, attending Seattle in 2012, Milwaukee in 2014, and Portland again in 2017. I presented (on my work, and a separate presentation on my teaching) at the conference in Pittsburgh in 2018. Then I didn't attend again until this year.

This year's theme: Volumes 

I figure that even though it's been a while (8 years, though only 6 in-person conferences) since I attended, my nine previous conference experiences give me some authority to say that I thought that there were some disappointing changes between this year's conferencce and previous ones I've attended. 

me: crabby (this was from the Substructure show, but I can't find the artist name and the website link is broken)

It seems like in Milwaukee there were a lot more presentations showing building and throwing processes as programing for the conference, whereas this year most demos seemed to be held by booths in the expo (so, company sponsored with limited viewing and seating). In Pittsburgh, I presented my work in the Blinc 20:20 short form section, which appears to have a correllary in this conferences' pograming, but I didn't see anything like the other presentation I did: a group discussion, simultaneous with another group discussion in the same room, about studio atmosphere and culture. Today, in drafting this post, I looked back on the post I wrote about both the Blinc and the Topical Networking sessions and apparently I thought NCECA was poorly organized at the time too, so maybe this year wasn't worse, I just remember it better than it felt at the time.

more crabbiness in some show where I also failed to get the artist's name (let me know and I can add it)

Of course both this year's crabbiness and my attitude in 2018 have many variables include my own stress level (finals and a presentation at NCECA the same day was a lot). I also realize that NCECA may be facing challenges with the location and physical space available to them, local business owners' attitudes, and who knows what else behind the scenes.  My own age and position at YVC and role at the conference also color what I care about and what I notice. Some of the conference is unapologetically aimed at new artists, students, and folks getting started. Additionally, of the programing changes may have been gradual over the last decade, while others may not be changes, but bad memory on my part.

 the Guardian building, one of the few ceramic-related sites near the conference center (but not listed in the app) with a ceiling and other decoration of Pewabic Pottery tiles

We like to talk about the influence of the pandemic on every aspect of modern life, and NCECA did cancel their 2020 conference and held a virtual conference in 202l.  For me, the intervening eight years included the pandemic, cancer treatment, and my AFT-Y union presidency, all three of which have adjusted the parameters of my job, work, and my perspective significantly. Looking back at past blog posts, NCECA was unorganized then, and I cared about some parts more than others. Interestingly, I think going with my friend Nina and with my Mom made both conferences a lot more fun than otherwise. NCECA 2028 will be in Spokane, maybe I should make arrangements to take a group from Yakima.

Driving around, it was always pretty easy to see our hotel in the distance, even from fairly far out of the downtown area

Back when I attended my first conference as an undergraduate, I remember being amazing at the scale of the conference and the crowds, and at the quantity and variety of exhibitions. Attending with a school cohort made the conference less intimidating and having our professor (John Beckelman) as a guide helped us choose what to attend and where to focus. I have always remembered John's thoughts on why he didn't attend every year and how he felt about the conference. The students were all agog about everything, but he said that attending made him feel good about what he was already doing. 

The K-12 student show is always at the conference center and always very impressive. 

I don't know how much I thought about it at the time, but attending conferences as an instructor, and especially this year, John's perspective from back then really resonated with me. This year, I had lots of good conversations, saw some good stuff and feel inspired to do my own work, but also vindicated by what I am already doing, both as an artist and an educator.

I attended this talk by Rebekah Bogard about how she makes large scuptures in pieces. Her approach is really similar to what I've been doing lately

This year I went in with some pretty specific goals to get some questions answered about kilns, wheels, and our 3D clay printer. I went in with technical questions and had a bunch of interesting and useful conversations with companies in the expo hall and returned home with stacks of resources. (The only downside is that I have to turn that stack and those conversations into a plan now that I'm home.)

Shortly before the conference, I was tasked with putting together a studio equipment maintenance plan.

The conference itself always consists of speakers, demos, exhibitions, free samples, sales, give aways, and even some performaces. This year there as a whole new (to me) subculture or trend of tradesies.  Folks had come prepared with pins, key changes, magnets and other small handmade ceramic items and they would trade with other attendees similarily prepared. Traded items then decorated their lanyards like badges on a scouting sash or medals on a letter jacket. 

In the expo, there were three separate booths where I wanted to buy something and they didn't sell it yet. They'd brought prototypes or hadn't figured out shipping to the US yet.

Compared to conferences I've attended for advising, writing, and curriculum, there's a lot of similar chatting, attending presentations, deciding what's worth your time. I don't remember much of an expo hall at academic conferences I've attended as an adult, but as I kid I remember they had book tables at the reading conferences I went to with my folks. Probably most conferences don't have a multiday scavenger hunt for ceramic tiles so folks can win a new wheel or kiln or art, etc.  And, of course, the biggest difference is the exhibitions. There are ceramic-centric shows scheduled during the conference throught the city and more distant communities (Yakima had clay events when NCECA was in Seattle), as well as in the conference center itself. 

This year there were a bunch of pretty small shows upstairs in the conference center itself

Compared to my previous experience, the exhibitions were disappointing. To some extent I felt that a lot of them weren't coherent--just a bunch of random pieces on pedestals. The exceptions being the Palestinian show at the Arab American Museum in Dearborn and the Ceramics x Fiber show in Detroit. There were shows with good work, but not as many good shows, and the vast majority of works in these shows lacked any kind of artist statement or interpretive materials. May next year NCECA can join forces with a Museum curation conference.

The Ceramics x Fiber exhibition paired ceramic artists with fiber artists for an creative, energetic, and fascinating group show that filled every nook and cranny in this old warehouse building

The biggest disappointment for me was the location of the shows and the difficulty fining them. The latter was primarily the fault of the conference, though I don't know if they had trouble getting shows downtown. NCECA has an app for the conference (they had an app in 2018, too), but it was poorly designed.  It worked adequately for finding lectures, demos and events and adding them to your own schedule (though I still prefer paper and assorted highlighters because it helps me plan what to attend if two things are scheduled for overlapping times). 

the app loading screen

But the app was garbage when it came to exhibitions and especially maps. There were, theoretically, maps in the app. The maps of the conference center didn't identify the expo hall, the demostration hall, or what was in each room or lobby area.  This wasn't a big problem, as the rooms were mostly numbered based on floor, but it led to some frustration on the first day when it said that an event would be in "Concourse C" but the word "concourse" didn't appear in any map. What level would concourse C be on, I wondered. Based on context, I have since learned that "Concourse C" means "just outside the doors to Hall C" and floor 2.  Later in the day, Concourse C was adjusted to mean "the middle of the lobby area near Hall C" on floor 2.

k-12 student work

The real problem, though, was with the 80+ exhibitions in and around Detroit (including Dearborn, Hamtramck, Flint, Ann Arbor, Warren, etc). In the past, I believe we've always gotten a paper copy of the schedule and exhibitions, with maps, and a paper program with my registration. You could buy the program separately this year, but you were expected to rely on their "interactive" map and exhibition list in the app to find shows. 

the main landing page for the app

In previous years, as I recall it, there have been different maps showing different exhibitions. For example. There is usually a map that shows exhibitions within a reasonably short walk of the conference center. This map didn't exist, in part, because there weren't many of these exhibitions. Usually there would be exhibitions in the conference center and in nearby hotels. Some exhibitions might be in cafes, shops, galleries, or temporary venues near the conference center. 

the menu page/overlay for the app

Another map or maps would include more of the city or a section of the city (or nearby cities) with marked exhibitions that one might need to get to via car, shuttle, or public transit.  There might be a map for Shuttle 1 and a differnet map for Shuttle 2. These multiple maps made it easy to find exhibitions that were either walkable from the hotel/conference center or where you could plan a route that combined one cab, car, or transit ride with some walking.

the start of the long exhibition list

Instead, this year's app included just one map. The details of the shows were not visible at the same time as the map was open, which led to juggling between the app and a browser, both on my phone. It didn't help that the Interactive map didn't include street names or GPS. The second night, I gave up and just wrote a list of exhibitions and their addresses.

when the map first loads, that's Flint alone at the top

It was also annoying that the map was accessible through the app, but opened a separate browser page. Links in that broswer page opened yet more pages, and none of these were ones that were easy to toggle between. I ended up with 43 open tabs on my phone because I was looking for things. The low reliability of the info in the app led to missed shows, arriving at shows that weren't open yet or had closed early, and lots of separate searches for addresses, directions, and hours.

lots of transit stops on Woodward Ave

After much trial and error and practice, here are my 22 easy steps for finding an exhibition in Detroit this year:

1. Unlock your phone
2. Open the NCECA app 
3. Remind your phone that you are not in Canada, despite your phone pinging a cell tower across the river in Windsor
4. Log into the conference center or hotel WiFi because you are worried about out-of-country data charges 
5. Now that's done, close all the windows you opened to try to avoid Canadian data charges
6. Open the NCECA app again
7. Click on the menu
8. Click on "Exhibitions" This is the 4th item down under "Presenters" in the menu. The 5th item is "maps" but this does not include any exhibition maps, so never use this.
9. Once you have opened "Exhibitions," select the first item titled "Click for 2026 NCECA Exhibitions Inter" This is the exhibitions map, but you wouldn't know that by reading the menu options or the visible title. They could have titled it "Exhibitons Map." but that would be too clear.
10. Once you have opened the map page, click on the link to get to the map.
11. Wait for your browser to load the page--there was always a lag.
12. Zoom in to Detroit, because this map includes Flint and Ann Arbor in the default view.
13. Adjust the screen to put downtown Detroit near the center. This will take a few tries.
14. Click on a variety of different icons because you don't know where the Conference Center is. There is no key. The purple flag is the Conference center. It is the same color as most, but not all, of the People Mover stations. (The People Mover is a free downtown transit option. It will be out of service for the duration of the conference. You cannot remove the icons for all the People Mover stops that you can't use. Try to ignore them, even when they are on top of other icons. Some of them are a different color. Some of them have different icons.)
15. Once you have found where you are, look a the little paint palette icons. These are probably art exhibitions. Sometimes these are not art exhibitions. Sometimes art exhibitions use a different icon. Some of the icons identify landmarks unrelated to clay or this conference. There will be no way to know ahead of time if a numbered icon is related to this conference or not. Some of the paint palette icons mark exhibitions that do not exist. NCECA will not updated the map, despite announcing, at the start of every lecture, that the app is "the most up to date" way to tell what's going on at the conference.
16. Find a cluster of paint palettes that appear to be close to the convention center. Zoom in to see the name of the street they are on. Just kidding, this map doesn't include street names!
17. Click on the closest paint palette icon. At the bottom of the screen there may be a word or words. 
18. Click the word(s) to enlarge. Text here may or may not include the name of the show or the name of a business at this location. There may be a link to, or photos of, an unrelated business.
19. Click the link. Now you are at a website for a restaurant. Good luck getting back to the map or this icon before you forget what you were looking for, or at.
20. Return to the app. 
21. Click the left arrow to return to the Exhibition list. There are over 80 exhibitions at NCECA this year. They are not listed alphabetically. They are not listed by location. You may not sort them by name, location, or any other feature. There is no search feature (edit: I found the Search feature today, Monday. The conference ended Saturday. I didn't check if it worked). You may not check off or hide exhibits you have already seen (or that do not exist). You may not highlight exhibitions you want to see. You may not search for exhibitions that are close to one another, are open now, open on a given day, have receptions on the same day, or close early. 
22. Click on every. single. one. of 80 individual exhibition pages and us a pencil and paper to write down their addresses, dates, hours, and descriptions. Look up each one separately in your phone's functional map app. Ideally, bring a friend or family member so they can use a funcrional map app on their phone while you convert information from the poorly designed NCECA app.

lots of different icons with unclear (at least to me) meanings

On the first day of the conference, Wednesday, we used the visual of the map (remember, road names are missing) to look for some exhibitions. One address and map location was simply a closed buiding under construction. We circled the whole building and the next one over. That exhibition didn't exist. We moved to the next street where a passing pedestrian informed us that we had to enter from the alley. That exhibition wouldn't open unitl Thursday. We stumbled upon the twin of the missing exhibition by accident on the way back to the convention center (the Cranbrook alumni show was listed twice with two different locations and two different icons in the NCECA map). We viewed another exhibition from the locked glass doors of the closed restaurant where it was housed. And got kicked out of another exhibition because it was a pop-up only opening for 3 hours on Thursday.

lots of steps trying to find that phantom show

The map was aggravating and easily the worst thing about the conference, but the lack of walkable shows was also pretty annoying. I was really hoping that this Detroit NCECA would celebrate the vibrant revitalization of the city with exhibitions in downtow spaces that were otherwise empty.  And to be clear, we saw lots of revitalization in the city and lots of empty space downtown, but that's not where the exhibitions were. There were a bunch of pop-ups, but they had a separate card, were mostly not listed in the NCECA app, were not particularly walkable, and were open on different nights, each for only a few hours at a time. We made it to none of them.

lots of streets without names

It was especially disappointing to be staying in large hotel on the waterfront with huge unused spaces, including waterfront views, with no exhibitions save for a single table for one of the hotel's employees. Don't get me wrong, it was super cool of the hotel to feature their employee, but with so much empty (glass enclosed and secure) space, there should have (and could have) been more. 

the view of our hotel from near the conference center

In fact, no downtown hotels had any exhibitions or installations of ceramic work that I was able to find, apart from a single one-night pop-up and the aforementioned table. The pop ups appeared to be mostly in bars, cafes, restaurants, etc. The problems I had with the pop ups may have been unrelated to NCECA, since the pop-ups weren't listed in anything from the conference organization itself.

four (empty) levels of our hotel, that are visible, but difficult to get to

I obviously don't know enough to know if the fault lay with NCECA's national organizers or local organizers of the conference, or with whoever owns and/or manages those empty downtown spaces. My mom understood that the Renaissance Center, our hotel was located, was supposed to be a public and river facing hub of business activity downtown. It clearly was not that. The restaurants in the hotel were quite expensive, and there was so much empty space. They restaurants were also difficult to find from inside the space.

it took us maybe 20 minutes to find the entrance to this "tube" that allowed us to cross the street out of the rain

As I understood it, the hotel and local restaurants were understaffed (maybe chronically), but on the other hand, there were security guards sitting in a variety of locations around the unnecessisarilty large and empty central part of the hotel. I didn't count carefully, but there had to be at least 4 or more on multiple floors.  They seemed to be bored out of their minds guarding basically empty space and giving directions to the perpectually lost guests trying to navigate the labyrinthine architectural folly of the Renaissance Center.  Wouldn't everyone have been happier if they could guard, say, a ceramic show AND the empty wastelands of the central hotel?

it is mandatory to visit a Culver's when in a state with a Culver's