Join us for NCECA’s 2026 Cultivating Community event, a series of online programming from November 16 to 20, 2026, to engage, learn, and collaborate!
Support Year-Round Programming by signing up for a recurring monthly donation!
NCECA Annual Fund
As NCECA strives to regain the vibrancy of in-person gatherings while building valuable opportunities and resources for its membership and the field year-round, your support of ongoing operations is more critical than ever.
Making a gift to the Annual Fund sustains the essential work of NCECA, carrying the organization's mission forward in the most responsive ways possible. Annual Fund donations empower NCECA to apply support where and when it is most needed.
Welcome to 2026 Cultivating Community.
Join NCECA for 2026 Cultivating Community, a free, week-long series of virtual programming and on-demand videos taking place November 16–20, 2026, designed to inspire learning, creativity, collaboration, and connection across the ceramics community.
The week features Dr. Jessica Merritt, NCECA Development Manager, sharing Ways to Give to NCECA; Dawn Holder and Allison Baker presenting Aspire House: Sculpture as Public Practice, exploring community-engaged art, mentorship, and inclusive public spaces; and Jennifer Masley and Tasha Lewis leading Ceramics in the Expanded Field, a conversation about interdisciplinary collaboration and the evolving possibilities of ceramics.
The week also includes the release of NCECA’s 2026 Keynote presentation featuring Hank Willis Thomas, with additional programming and video releases to follow. Join us on Wednesday, November 18, at noon Eastern for the 2026 NCECA Members’ Meeting, an opportunity to hear organizational updates, share ideas, connect with fellow members, and help shape the future of NCECA.
Whether you are an artist, educator, student, or ceramics enthusiast, Cultivating Community offers meaningful opportunities to exchange knowledge, discover new perspectives, and strengthen connections across our field. Explore the programming, pre-register for virtual sessions, and discover the benefits of NCECA membership at nceca.net/members.
Monday, November 16, 2026
Lunch & Learn: Ways to Give to NCECA
with Dr. Jessica Merritt at NOON/ET.
As we prepare for our 61st Anniversary and continue to expand programs that support artists, educators, and students, your partnership is more vital than ever. This year, we invite you to deepen your connection to NCECA by joining one of our Giving Circles, each representing a unique way to sustain and shape the field we love through giving.
Join this session to learn about Ways to Give to NCECA, from one-time donations to planned giving. Dr. Jessica Merritt will walk you through all the ways and guide you through making NCECA an intentional part of your financial planning. Learn more by visiting https://nceca.net/givingcircles.
Monday, November 16, 2026
2026 NCECA Keynote Presenter:
Hank Willis Thomas, Mind Your Heart
Mind Your Heart with Hank Willis Thomas and special guests KESSWA and Nova Zaii explores how art can be an active practice of community, shaping what we see, what we remember, and how we belong. Bridging studio work and public projects, he reflects on material, context, and the creative practice, inviting the NCECA community to consider how clay and craft can hold history while imagining more connected futures.
-
Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and is a conceptual artist whose work examines themes of identity, perspective, commodity, media, and popular culture. Thomas’ interdisciplinary practice spans sculpture, photography, retroreflectives, quilt-based works, film, and more, often challenging the viewer to critically engage with the complexities of contemporary culture. Thomas has held solo exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, including The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR (2019) Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2020); the Cincinnati Art Museum, OH (2020); the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. (2021); and the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (2024).
His work is included in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., among others.
His collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males; In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth); The Writing on the Wall; The Gun Violence Memorial Project; and For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement, discourse & direct action.
Thomas was the 2022 U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts honoree from the Office of Art in Embassies, Washington DC. Additionally, he was the Harmer/Eisner Artist-in-Residence in for Aspen Institute Arts Program (2024-2025) and the recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), The Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (2017), the Soros Equality Fellowship (2017), Aperture West Book Prize (2008), Renew Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation (2007), and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award (2006). He is a former member of the Public Design Commission for the City of New York.
Thomas’s public art practice includes permanent artworks around the country, including The Embrace (2023) on the Boston Common in Boston, MA; With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited (2025) at Davidson College in Davidson, NC; REACH (2023), made in collaboration with Coby Kennedy, at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, IL; Duality (2023) at The Underline in Miami, FL; and The Truth is I Love You (2023), at the Austin Public Library, Austin, TX. Additional permanent public artworks include Unity (2019) in Downtown Brooklyn, NY; Love Over Rules (date) at Yerba Buena in San Francisco, CA; and All Power to All People in Opa Locka, FL.
Thomas holds a B.F.A. from New York University, New York, NY (1998) and an M.A./M.F.A. from MASS Art, MA, CCA the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2004). He received an honorary doctorate from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA in 2025; CCA the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA in 2024 as well as honorary doctorates from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, and the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portland, ME in 2017.
He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Tuesday, November 17, 2026
Aspire House: Sculpture as Public Practice: Allison Baker and Dawn Holder at NOON/ET.
Aspire House fuses ceramics, public sculpture, and social practice. This co-lecture presents an ethical, scalable model for community-engaged art, integrating mentorship, collaboration, and civic engagement.
Attendees will explore how ceramics and sculpture can foster inclusive public spaces while supporting historically underrepresented artists and sustainable neighborhood partnerships.
-
Allison Baker is an Associate Professor of Sculpture at Herron School of Art, Indiana University Indianapolis. A first-generation college graduate, she earned her MFA from RISD. Her work includes monumental public sculptures addressing late-stage capitalism and the working class, with exhibitions at CICA Museum, Franconia Sculpture Park, and Hashimoto Contemporary.
-
Dawn Holder is an artist and educator whose work examines landscape as a site of memory, ecological change, and cultural meaning. Working across ceramics, sculpture, and installation, she has exhibited nationally and internationally. Holder is Associate Professor and Graduate Director of the MFA in Visual Art at Indiana University’s Herron School of Art and Design.
Wednesday: November 18, 2026 at Noon/ET
2026 NCECA Members’ Meeting
Pre-register today to join the NCECA Members’ Meeting on Wednesday, November 18, 2026, at 12:00PM/ET!
When ceramic artists and educators established NCECA, their vision was to create a sense of connection where there had once been isolation. Today, NCECA members continue to foster creative camaraderie, build networks, and share knowledge. Join the conversation and connect with your community during the upcoming Members’ Meeting.
The NCECA Members’ Meeting is an opportunity to hear organizational updates, share ideas, and connect with fellow NCECA members.
A longstanding tradition since NCECA’s inception, the Members’ Meeting evolved in 2020 to make participation accessible to members everywhere, including those unable to attend the annual conference in person. This commitment continues to bring more members together to engage, exchange ideas, and help shape the future of NCECA.
Help shape the conversation! NCECA invites members and the broader ceramics community to share questions and topics for consideration at this year’s Annual Members’ Meeting. Your input helps guide meaningful conversations and strengthens our community.
The meeting link will be provided after pre-registration. We look forward to seeing you there!
Thursday, November 19, 2026
Ceramics in the Expanded Field: Jennifer Masley, Tasha Lewis at NOON/ET.
Ceramics has long been sustained through shared knowledge, communal spaces, and collaboration. Today, that foundation is expanding beyond clay, as artists increasingly work across material classifications to build new forms of exchange.
This panel opens up a dialog between organizers to see how structures between disciplines are created and maintained.
-
Jennifer Masley is an artist and educator currently based in Marquette, MI. She holds an MFA from Kent State University and BFA from Texas State University in San Marcos, TX. Her studio practice is focused on slip casting with invested interest in experimental methods within ceramics and mold making.
-
Tasha Lewis’s wide-ranging sculptural practice employs the body of the artist as a starting point for investigations into the interconnected histories of textile and technology, and the ways in which history’s multiple returns to the female form both empower and undercut her own influence in systems of power.
Support Year-Round Programming by signing up for a recurring monthly donation!
NCECA Annual Fund
As NCECA strives to regain the vibrancy of in-person gatherings while building valuable opportunities and resources for its membership and the field year-round, your support of ongoing operations is more critical than ever.
Making a gift to the Annual Fund sustains the essential work of NCECA, carrying the organization's mission forward in the most responsive ways possible. Annual Fund donations empower NCECA to apply support where and when it is most needed.
Welcome to the 2027 NCECA Charm Conference in Baltimore, Maryland from March 10–13, 2027.
-
NCECA’s 61st conference, Charm, takes place in Baltimore, Maryland, March 10–13, 2027.
Charm, the 61st annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) takes place from March 10–13, 2027. Your research, creativity, and knowledge can be shared with thousands of clay enthusiasts from throughout the U.S. and worldwide to learn from one another, investigate, and grow. The diverse qualities of Baltimore’s historic neighborhoods, the energy of its enterprising harbor, varied natural features, and the warmth of its people give rise to the identity of The Charm City.
-
Registration for the 2027 Charm Conference is now open! Visit 2027 Charm Conference page to learn more with the button below.