Pathways: Collaboration, Community, Clay

Pathways: Collaboration, Community, Clay will bring together artists, community programs, and outreach organizations that have embarked on and demonstrated alternative pathways to establishing, pursuing, and supporting sustainable creative experiences and careers in the ceramic field; pathways that dispel the notion that the most valid path is to solely engage and operate within the academy, revealing opportunities beyond the accepted value of academic degrees with accessible and meaningful creative experiences with clay. Participants in this exhibition have activated and continue to create viable pathways parallel to the traditional and, more often than not, expensive and increasingly inaccessible route of academia. This invitational exhibition aims to provide a platform for artists, community programs, and outreach organizations who, with intent, walk and contribute to establishing and validating pathways and inroads to clay outside the support system of academia.

Pathways includes artists who have created sustainable and life-long careers in clay from beginnings in community education programs and makers who have chosen residencies to develop further their studio practice, career, and community; makers who embrace the entrepreneurial realm of production, commissions, and retail partnerships; the presence of smaller community-focused studios that serve the needs and interests in the clay of their local communities, with founders sharing and providing creative spaces for local community members; and essential outreach programs that connect diverse communities to ceramic education, activities, and innovating learning experiences with clay.

The exhibition catalog and essay will offer an introduction including short interviews with each artist, program, founders, and members of the local studio organizations in the exhibition. The exhibition will also serve as a starting point for discussions centering the experiences, challenges, and future planning in a symposium-style collaboration of ideas and knowledge with public programming.

Pathways will also serve as a platform to accommodate tours for local schools to explore a gallery installation offering the equivalent of “career day” for clay. To activate community importance and involvement, NCC will serve as a site for voter registration on dates throughout the exhibition run.

Gallery Hours: 10 am - 5 pm, 7 days a week.